"Jurassic Grandpa"

By Jerry Zezima

My 7-year-old grandson wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. I, his 70-year-old grandfather, have given him a head start because, let’s face it, I’m a fossil.

And I know a lot about prehistoric life. That’s why I should be a tour guide at my grandson’s favorite place, the Museum of Natural History, which he likes to call the Dinosaur Museum.

We went there recently because my grandson had made a startling discovery — what appeared to be a fossilized crab, which he found in a field at his school.

“It looks like a trilobite,” I said.

I knew this because when I was my grandson’s age, I was a fan of prehistoric animals, too.

“My favorite is T. rex,” my grandson said. “Its name means ‘King of the Tyrant Lizards.’ It lived in the Cretaceous Period.”

“I’m G. rex,” I said. “My name means ‘King of the Geezers.’ I’m from the Boomer Period.”

“When was that?” my grandson asked.

“Back when Buick Skylarks roamed the earth,” I told him.

My grandson said he also likes triceratops because it had impressive horns.

“It must have played the tuba,” I guessed.

My grandson rolled his eyes and said that stegosaurus had plates on its back.

“How did it eat dinner?” I wondered.

“You’re silly, Poppie,” my grandson said, adding that stegosaurus had a brain the size of a walnut.

“I think I have something in common with that dinosaur,” I said.

My grandson sighed and told me that the largest dinosaur was brachiosaurus.

“Brontosaurus was big, too,” I said. “But it had to change its name to Apatosaurus.”

“Why?” my grandson inquired.

“Because,” I said, “another dinosaur stole its identity.”

This was the kind of priceless information you couldn’t get from just any tour guide at the Dinosaur Museum, which we visited that afternoon.

Our first stop was an exhibit featuring small creatures from the Paleozoic Era, which began 538 million years ago.

“There it is!” my grandson exclaimed, pointing to a rock containing the exoskeleton of a trilobite.

“It looks like the one you found,” I said.

“You’re right, Poppie,” he said. “How did you know?”

“I’m old,” I answered.

We also saw the massive skeleton of a brachiosaurus, which stood next to a shorter, thinner but still gigantic relative.

“I bet that’s diplodocus,” I said.

“It is,” my grandson confirmed after reading the sign. “You know a lot.”

“I’m an encyclopedia of useless information,” I proclaimed proudly.

My grandson, who loves armadillos, spotted the reconstructed remains of a huge ancestor in the prehistoric mammal section.

“Glyptodon,” I said. “It was as big as a Volkswagen Beetle, but it didn’t have 4-speed manual transmission.”

I showed my grandson the skeleton of megatherium, a giant ground sloth.

“It was slow and lazy,” I noted. “Kind of like me, except I don’t have a tail.”

We saw lots of other neat stuff before heading to the gift shop, where my grandson got a junior paleontology kit with a tiny stegosaurus inside.

“It must be a baby,” I said.

“That’s not a real dinosaur,” my grandson informed me.

He proved it when we got back to his house, where he opened the kit and went to work, using a hammer and chisel to chip away at a block of hard plaster containing a fake skeleton.

In no time, he had uncovered several ribs and a hip bone.

“Just like a paleontologist,” I told him.

“That’s what I want to be when I grow up,” my grandson said.

“You could put your discoveries in the Dinosaur Museum,” I said. “In fact, you could run the place. And if you let me tell silly jokes, I could be a tour guide.”

Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima