I
s there anything cooler than dinosaurs when you’re a
kid?
Perhaps it was just my generation, but I hope that the
fascination continues today.
Take even the shyest, shrinking-est violet of a child and
watch her ears perk when you mention names like pterodactyl,
triceratops, brachiosaurus, velociraptor — and of course, the
king of them all, tyrannosaurus rex.
I knew that tyrannosaurus rex translated roughly into “lizard
king” before I knew my times tables. I think I’ll always remember more dinosaur facts than I will elements on the periodic
table — and it’s no wonder. For young kids, it can be difficult
to frame science in a way that makes it interesting. But throw
dinosaurs into the mix and all suddenly all different aspects of
science come alive in vivid color, from geology to biology.
I grew up during an exciting time for dinosaur lovers. In the
1980s and early ’90s, archeologists began to unearth the most
complete and incredible T. rex skeletons ever found. They gave
them the absolute coolest nicknames, too: Black Beauty (specimen number RTMP 81.6.1, discovered in 1980 in Alberta), Devil
Rex (MOR 555, discovered in 1988 in Montana) and the biggest
and the baddest, Sue (FMNH PR2081, discovered in 1990 in
South Dakota).
Then “Jurassic Park” came out in 1993 and the image of the
mighty T. rex, roaring and stomping her way after puny humans,
was emblazoned in the minds of kids across the nation forever.
When I was young — 9 or 10 — my parents took me along
on a business trip to Atlanta. It was a trade show, not at all a
kid-friendly venue, and the trip from Jacksonville to Atlanta and
back was quite a long one for a little kid to make in one day.
So why bring me along at all?
A museum in Atlanta had a T. rex skeleton on display and I
had never, ever seen one. My parents made enough time in the
trip for us to visit the museum and see the skeleton.
I looked forward to that trip more than Christmas, my birthday and summer vacation all combined into one. It was simply
one of those incredible moments as a child where reality lives
up to your expectation of something that you’ve build up as
earth shatteringly, impossibly cool. If you have a great imagination, those moments don’t come along often.
When they do, you don’t forget them.
Spoiled rotten, I couldn’t leave the museum without some
sort of memento. I remember riding the MARTA that afternoon,
tightly hugging a stuffed velociraptor from the museum gift
shop.
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I was understandably excited when I heard that Sue, the big
bad mother from 1990, was coming to The Museum of Science
and History in Jacksonville. I planned an outing with Jonathan,
my partner in crime, gushing all the while about how much
I had enjoyed my trip two decades ago to Atlanta. How I had
seen a complete T. rex skeleton there, too — although I couldn’t
pin down which specimen it had been. I stopped short of quoting “Jurassic Park,” but it took a great deal of restraint.
A common thread of 20-somethings is that we tend to revisit
elements of our childhood that never quite live up to our original impressions of them. Whether it’s going back to Disney after
a long absence or visiting a relative in another state, everything
seems much smaller, much different — not quite the way we
remembered it.
I’m happy to report that no matter what age you see a T. rex
skeleton, it is still a time-stands-still, recognize-your-mortality,
bask-in-the-awe-of-something-quite-majestic ty