Paul Gaudette Managing Editor
If you saw the title of this column and immediately pictured the skeleton of a T-Rex then you are probably also a fan of Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” a blockbuster that celebrated its 30th anniversary on June 11.
As a man staring down his 40th birthday, it’s staggering to me that 30 years have passed since the summer that I went to see my favorite dinosaur movie multiple times.
This is no small compliment either. I can remember talking to friends in first grade about future careers and several of us cited archaeologist as a genuine, sensible answer.
The kid who could name the most dinosaurs and identify them as herbivore or carnivore claimed the right to have that future career.
Those bragging rights have a definitive shelf life though since several of the dinosaurs that were my favorites as a kid were revealed to be drastically different than originally thought, have changed names or didn’t exist and were a mix-up of bones from other species.
The advancements in archaeology revealed that velociraptors were objectively less cool in real life than they were in “Jurassic Park.” They tried to address this in sequels with.... mixed results.
Recently, I got to spend time with one of my best friends from high school, his wife and their five daughters.
The family was wanting to visit Glen Rose and Fossil Rim while they were in the area, so Wyndi and I volunteered to take two of them in our vehicle so all five could get a window seat on the drive through safari. On the drive there and through the park, I was treated to many science and animal facts, most of them fascinating and some of them gross, that reminded me a lot of the information I collected when I was a kid.
I was actually humming the Jurassic Park theme as we entered the gates of Fossil Rim... It’s a drive-though safari, how can you not get it stuck in your head?!
It was a blast watching the kids share animal info and race around the petting zoo in the middle.
It was also fun and panic-inducing when we all went to Dinosaur Valley State Park to see the footprints which were underwater on our visit. We all shucked off our shoes and the adults slowly crossed the slippery rocks to the observations area while the kids moved about three times our speed through the water. The youngest made a fun game of going back and forth on the rocks that gave a couple of us anxiety to get across.
The daughter who regaled us with animal facts proceeded to plunge her hands in where she suspected there were crawfish. She handed me a dead one, proving that they were indeed in the area. (She also handed me an estimated five dozen bugs that she caught through the day... Okay, it was closer to five.
Witnessing their energy and desire to explore and learn reminded me of me and my friends when I was younger.
That love of adventure is probably what draws both Wyndi and I to re-watch JP often... or maybe dinosaurs are just cool.
Gaudette is the Managing Editor of the Dublin Citizen. He can be reached at publisher@dublincitizen.com.