Curiosity, the Backbone of My Education

Photograph taken by ScienceNrrd on 9.20.09

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I have this condition - it's called Curiosity Won't Let Me Leave Anything Alone.  I can't just see or hear about something I think is cool, I have to go look at it, touch it, or take a picture.  I don't photograph people very much; I don't find that to be very interesting, but put me outside with a camera, and I can't stop!

As a child, I loved bugs.  Anytime my mom found one in the house, it was I whom she'd call to take care of it, shrinking back in disgust.  "See, mom?  It's just a spider," I'd say, incredulous at her apparent fear of something so small.  I remember digging up countless earthworms with my neighbors and sisters.  We'd cut them in half, or slit them midway down the body to the end, so they were forked like a snake's tongue. Earthworms regenerate.  Everybody knew that.  Or at least, we did.  How we came to such a conclusion is something I cannot answer, but there we were, splitting the worms open, "It's going to grow two heads, side-by-side now.  We can dig it up later, like in a few days, and it will have two heads!  And that one over there will have a head where the tail was, and that other one will have a tail where the head was!"  Two-headed worms, worms with heads at both ends, tails at both ends.  We were confident.  We never did find any of our regenerated creations, but we continued to dig regularly.

I've never outgrown this child-like curiosity, and it popped up in its latest form just a couple weeks ago during that trip to Nantucket.  I had planned to stay home, as I had too much homework to finish.  "Look," my friend begged, "I'm not going to Nantucket alone to fish by myself.  You have to come!  I'll bring my laptop, the B&B has a computer you can use, and there's a library if you need it.  Just come.  You can do your work at the beach while I fish, I won't disturb you."  Now if my grades are any indication, I am intelligent enough, and I can tell you right now that if you have someone begging you to go to Nantucket and who will provide you with the means to get work done whilst there, should you have much work to do, go, I say, GO!  And go, I did.  I had two marvelous days of writing in a charming little room at a quaint B&B on a quiet street lined with a rainbow of botanic pleasures.  Door and windows open to the breeze and the calls of the gulls, my fingers moved rhythmically to the pulse of the distant waves.  Bearnt bearnt beardearnt bearnt beeeardearnt! - my phone pulled me out of my trance.

"Catch anything, yet?"

"Nope, but I found something."

"What?" I asked, my mind still on my work.

"I think it's some kind of backbone."  Instantly, I am alert and attentive.  Nothing like the phrase I think I found a backbone... to get me hanging on your every word.

"Really?" I ask.  "What is it from?  Is it clean?"  I am very curious, and what I really want to say is bring it back, but I'm too embarrassed.  I mean, I don't want people thinking I collect roadkill or anything, right?  I know it's not the same, but...

"I don't know, but it's big, about eighteen inches long.  And, yeah, it's picked pretty clean."  And here it comes: "Want me to bring it to you?"  Oh, sweet friendship, someone knows me this well and doesn't knock me for it!

Later that afternoon I am admiring this cool, salty puzzle, though against my better judgment it gets bagged up for the evening.  Stinking up the next morning, we take the vertebrae back to the beach.  "This is where it belongs," I point out, "but I have to photograph it first, so that I can find out what it is."  I spend my last minutes before the ferry comes blaring by for us gently studying, posing, and photographing my model with care.  Session over, we head for the ferry where I continue writing; a new thought, a new phrase, with every lilt of the boat. Answers will have to wait.

Now, however, it is investigation time.  To what organism did this structure belong?  Bony, my companion called it, though I felt it was more stiff and papery, reminding me of the texture of the inside of a lobster shell. Perhaps cartilage, though not quite the 'give' that one would expect (from drying out in the sun?) and very lightweight.  At one end were two stiff, hollow curved pieces, about 5" long.  I am on a mission to identify the owner of the vertebrae.  Skate, fish, small marine mammal?  This is what I hope to find out over the coming days and weeks.  Ideas anyone?