Reflections of an Old Geologist

I can sleep late tomorrow if the dogs let me. My telephone conference isn't until late afternoon. They want me to analyze a meteorite. That's not my specialty. Why me? I'm retired and all of my career I have studied earth processes, like landslides, earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions. I have no experience with extraterrestrial materials. They wouldn't tell me exactly who they were except to say they were a special government agency involved in a top secret project.

Since I was a boy I never met a rock I didn't like. I love 'em all: new caladonians, brimstone, phosphorite, lemonstone, baysalt, ignatious, salamentery, metamorphite, granted, obscenian, kidneystone, zirconium, troglodyte, dynomite, wackerstone, wad, and of course stalactites and maglites. When I was a kid, I always wanted to get coal in my Christmas stocking. I preferred anthracite, but if I just got bituminous, I was OK with that. Studying geology was my passion or so I thought. Most people think geologists are boring people. I agree, but I had my moments.

I once married a rock when I was young and naive. Her name was Laverne. She was a beautiful, bright piece of quartzite. I was smitten, and I gave her my heart, but she was icy cold and self-absorbed. And her social skills were terrible. That stony look on her face became too much for me to bear, so I got an annulment after a few months because she refused to consummate the marriage. Over the next few years I had several flings, but nothing serious. I dated a piece of obsidian for a few months, but because I was white and she was black, her family forbade us from continuing the relationship. A few years later I had a one-night stand with a geode. At the time I thought it was a very erotic tryst, but with the passage of time I realized how hollow it actually was.

Romance was never a strong suit for me because I always have been a scientist and I over-analyze just about everything. I never found the pot of gold I was looking for. So I directed my life to a career in geology. In my post-graduate studies I focused on the geomicrobiology of mineral formation, paleo-reconstruction of the past biosphere and climate system, trace gas production in microbial mats, modeling of organic matter distributions, and marine geology and tectonics.

Once I completed a post-doc, I began my career as a professor teaching at a prestigious university and writing papers for the National Geological Society. Some of my best known work included:

The Mammary Cleavage of the Grand Teton Range 1974, 125 p. [pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1744/].

Intrabasement Reflections and Secretions of the Benton Formation in North Dakota 1983, 192 p. [pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1911/].

After a few years I lost my desire for scholarly work. My true calling was field work, so I bummed around taking short-term jobs. I worked in the oil industry, and later took a job with a coal mining company. I even surveyed the Grape Wall of China. The money was good, but why they decided to build it with grapes is beyond me. None of these job was fulfilling, so I got out of geology altogether. I worked at a fish cannery in Juneau for a while, then took a job at an oyster shucking plant in New Orleans. So many years slipped by. Finally, I settled into a teaching job at a community college in the Midwest where I taught undergraduate geology courses. I stayed there until I retired.

In retrospect I can clearly see that I gave up a promising career because of my persistent wanderlust. Nothing I did was really satisfying. Some would say I squandered my talent and intellectual prowess. Now I'm in the twilight of my life. But I don't worry about what could have been.

So here I am again in Salt Pork, West Virginia, where I was born and growed up. Nothing much has changed here over the years. People are still poor, there aren't any jobs, and there sure isn't any need for a geologist. The town isn't much more than a tavern, a food market, gas station, run down Dairy Queen, and laundromat. You have to drive all the way to Falls Mill if you need to see a doctor.

So I'm back to the beginning—where I belong. I'll finish my life here. What the heck. I don't need no meteorite job. I think I'll call up that agency and tell them to find somebody else. Then I'll take the dogs out for a long walk in the woods.