About 25 years ago, the entire United States appeared to be caught up in King Tut mania, and Chicago was no different. The Art Institute of Chicago was host to a traveling Tut exhibit, and the lines stretched around the block, full of people anxious to see the precious artifacts. My husband had been lucky to snag a couple of tickets through an alumni group, so off we went one spring evening. There we were jammed into the exhibit halls, thigh to thigh and cheek to jowl with other patrons, pressed against the glass display cases which held one fabulous gold object after another. I happened to be wedged against another couple, where the wife was clearly entranced by the exhibit and lingered breathlessly at each display case, much to the annoyance of her husband and those jostling behind her.
“Come on honey, let’s go,” he begged. “Haven’t you seen enough?”
“No there is another exhibit ahead of us that I have not seen, and this is our only chance,” she replied.
“I don’t think that we need to stay and see that, after all it is just another golden scepter.”
“Just another golden scepter,” the words struck me as extremely amusing and sad, emblematic of Americans’ appetite for wanton excess followed by boredom and ennui when it is presented to us, which only breeds a further insatiable desire. Here in this exhibit hall, the enduring craftsmanship of thousands of years, the achievements of an ancient culture, the back story of hundred and thousands of slaves preparing a tomb and riches to prepare a boy king for a peculiar afterlife – all overwhelmed by the dazzle of too many golden scepters. Unfortunately, I agreed with my jaded wedge-mate; I was ready to go.
Over the years as I have attempted to learn and become more aware of my natural environment, I have kept the phrase “just another golden scepter” in my mind. Everyday, our dear planet earth certainly hands us a profusion of golden scepters, even as we simply step outside the door to take the dog for a walk. I only have to look at my dog, joyously sniffing nature’s aromatic bounties to realize this, but I am typically just too lazy and complacent to appreciate the visual gifts before me. One of the distinguishing features of humans being should be our intellectual curiosity and powers of observation, gifted to us either through dumb luck, dogged evolution or some greater power, but if we can just remember to use them, we can transform the most quotidian occurrence into a marvel. Leaf through any natural history or wildlife publication and you will find a wealth of guided trips that will whisk you off to some exotic location to plop you down in front of one of the great wonders of the world. And while I am jealous of those trips, I also realize that with a little applied brain power I could probably find something just as spectacular (intellectually if not visually) in my own back yard.
So what is going on in my backyard? Probably everything, if I could sharpen my powers of observation. A minimal amount of applied brain power should be able to produce astonishing results. I would only have to look to Victorian England as an example of back yard natural history. The late 1800s have been referred to as the Era of Discovery, marked by the fruits of the burgeoning industrial revolution and world wide explorations. Here was Darwin and Lord Alfred Wallace developing theories of natural selection based on observations from the Galapagos and South Seas, respectively, with collections of exotic animals filtering their way back to home port. All an enterprising Englishman would have to do is hop on a boat and travel to the nearest exotic island, and with a little leg work and luck, could probably self name three entirely unique and glorious species. But perhaps these trips, which admittedly carried with them the threat of scurvy, bizarre tropical diseases and death, would be akin to the adventure travel of today, and many English opted for a more local pursuit, back yard beetle collecting. In his autobiography, Darwin describes his zealous beetle collecting:
“One day on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind,
which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one…”
Some can find nature without ever stepping outside. In first grade Frances had the assignment of preparing a quiz for their classmates where they would provide three clues to an animal. If the class could not guess, then the student would show a picture. The assembled parents were treated to the typical lions and tigers and bears, and then it was Frances’ turn. At the time, I was involved in a project on asthma and therefore had done some research on house dust mites, whose feces are a common allergy trigger. My daughter must have seen them.
She stood up and said, “What has six legs, no eyes and two million of them live in your bed?”
The class’ horror was compounded by the gruesome picture she then displayed – a largely magnified view of the microscopic
translucent and hairy bug – and the thought of 2 million of them plus their feces mingling with you as you slept was creepily fascinating. So there you have it, you can even find nature compelling without getting out of bed.
This summer I was sitting at a picnic table eating lunch and reading a book. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bug marching across the table toward my sandwich. I casually swept the bug off the table, and then was immediately filled with remorse – I might have just casually dismissed one of the seven great wonders of the insect world. I spotted the insect squirming upside down in the leaf litter and carefully lifted it back to the table. This was one magnificent beetle, with tall legs that reminded me of the huge wheels on monster trucks that can handle any terrain. There were two long wildly swinging antennae and large clawed forearms that must have been uniquely adapted to something. I was happy to share my lunch with just another golden scepter.
The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. post, spot, stop) and the number of dashes indicates the number of letters in the word. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the preceding or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.
I want to tell you a few things about asthma that might give you a fright
Most allergic coughing and sneezing is caused by the house dust —-.
Just think that every —- you go to sleep in your comfy bed,
You are sharing it with an eight legged animal with a hairy head.
And here is another —- that will surely make your skin crawl.
There are millions midst your sheets and that’s not all
You will —- a shriek and say no more information please,
When you learn that it’s their feces that’s making you sneeze.
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Answers: mite, time, item, emit
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