Thursday, October 09, 2003

 
"Lucite, you got some 'splaining to do!"
Or: No Daffodils or Lilies at the Dig

The lack of any email to this site (REACTIONRY@aol.com)has led to a lack of interest here other than to er, react to the recent transmorgrification of Corner posters' names into parts of speech("witty and derbane" - "suave and derbinair" - "The 'Yorking' of Krugman")and to dredge up an old parody of Yours Truly in response to the steady drip-drip-drip of Lucite references- which caused the resolve to publish doggerel to harden.
The age of the famous fossil, "Lucy," estimated at over 3 million years, approaches John Derbyshire's figure of 4 mil for the lifeless expectancy of a slab of Lucite, but much has been "read" from those remains. David Johanson is credited with the discovery of "Lucy," but given a multiple choice examination including the name of Richard Leakey, most of us would probably use the number two pencil to blacken the box of the latter paleontologist. Bearing that in mind, I retyped the already ancient parody and copped a signature from the kindly RL at his book signing line following a presentation he gave at the U. of Mn. years ago.
The Gentle Reader is invited to review part of Wordsworth's poem, "Lucy," before joining Dr. Leakey as he wanders, lonely, for a clod, through a parched land where neither Daffodil nor axolotl thrive. (The "editorial" comment that follows Wordsworth's work is sorta' reproduced here and was part of the page inflicted upon the good doctor -who, I'm a little ashamed to admit, had done me no harm.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove:
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone
Half - hidden from the eye!
- Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, O!
The difference to me!
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He Knelt Among The Trodden Ways
(Dr. Richard "Dick" Leakey makes haste slowly to excavate a promising find before it is trampled by the herds of the Afar.)
[Ed. note: Apparently in the "tradition" of John Keats who identified Cortez, rather than Balboa as the discoverer of the Pacific, Minnesota's Queen's College(exchange)Professor Butley confuses Leakey with Donald Johanson. Dr. Johanson's most memorable statement to date remains, "Yah sure, Lucy got some 'splaining to do!"

In veldt, among the trodden ways
Beside the Valley Rift:
A maid whom there are none to raise,
And very few to sift.

A fossil, kin to senseless stone,
Half hidden in the chert;
Fair is a bone, that's dimly shown
Its difference from dirt!

Her knell was tolled by isotopes
When Lucy ceased to be;
But Leakey's on her tomb, and hopes
To call her, "Family!"
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Aknowledgements(of poetic license): I haven't the foggiest of how Dr. Johanson speaks or of his birthplace. And it should be noted that even in Minnesota the liklihood that someone would utter a norski "Yah sure" or even a Fargoesque "You betcha" is rather small. -And a big fat "Fie!" to any who might object to the use of "veldt" or "chert."