When I Grow Up

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Remember that question? Are you still asked that question? A five year old (now six!) recently asked me. I told him I want to be a grown-up when I grow up. He said, "Me too. And I want to be a policeman!"

I grew up watching Star Wars and Indiana Jones. As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be an archaeologist thanks to Dr. Jones. As I got a little older, I learned that archaeology isn't at all like what you see in Indiana Jones, but I was okay with that. I still gobbled up articles from National Geographic and watched excavations on the Discovery Channel. I would dig in the dirt and rocks for "Indian beads" and fossils.

So-called "Indian beads" are really fossilized plant stems. Well, actually, they're a crinoid called "Sea Lilies", which are animals that look like plants. They're about 1/2 billion years old!


Remember these? They're pretty common in at least the Midwest. Shallow seas used to cover the Illinois area where Sea Lilies thrived.

I don't remember when, exactly, I discovered they weren't actually Indian (Native American) beads, but I do remember being the nerdy little girl in elementary school, digging in the rocks at recess with one or two of my nerdy friends. I remember telling them that they're actually plant fossils.

There was a long stage of my life when my mother would find rocks in the washing machine because I'd shove handfuls of cool looking rocks in my pockets then forget to take them out. I restrain myself most of the time, but every once in a while I'll still pick up a rock and take it home. I had a smooth black one in my car for years. I finally (hesitantly) tossed it in the front yard when I sold my car.

I also grew up watching Land Before Time. I don't remember if that is what inspired me or if it was trips to the museum or something else entirely, but at the same time I wanted to be an archaeologist, I wanted to be a paleontologist also. I LOVED dinosaurs. I dreamed of discovering ancient cities frozen in time like Pompeii, then turning around and excavating a brontosaurus.

I remember when Jurassic Park came out. I wanted to see it SO badly, but my parents wouldn't let me because I had a recurring nightmare about an orange T-Rex terrorizing the playground at school. There was no way they were going to let me watch a more realistic looking T-Rex terrorizing and viciously eating adults. It turns out, once I finally stopped having the nightmare and could watch JP, I was more terrified of the velociraptors.

When my mom worked at the church and I had to tag along, I always liked to go to the Sunday School rooms and nursery where there were more interesting things to do. You have to cross the gym to get to that wing of the church. All the lights would be off but the gym had lots of small yellow stained-glass windows, so it was bright enough, though a little eerie. I'd open the doors to the back wing of the church very slowly and tip toe down the hallway. There was one room (the one for the youngest kids outside of the nursery) that had no windows and was always pitch black. I was irrationally convinced a velociraptor was lurking in that room. And because, according to JP, they hunted in packs I figured they knew I knew one was there so that meant there was another one hiding nearby to take me down. I'd eventually run-waddle down the hall, flipping on all the lights in that wing, singing "Jesus Loves Me".

The fifth-graders at my school had to write, for our year books, what we wanted to be when we grew up. Our words, in our handwriting, were printed underneath our individual pictures. Amid doctors, nurses, teachers, astronauts, firemen, policemen, and race car drivers, was my dopey looking picture with "archaeologist/paleontologist" scrawled, perfectly spelled, underneath it.

At some point I decided I may as well be a geologist while I'm at it, so I added that to my collection of careers.

I was set. I was convinced I would have the luxury of digging in the dirt the rest of my life. All through middle school, when asked, I would say I wanted to be an archaeologist, paleontologist, geologist or any combination of the three. Adults raised their eyebrows, mildly impressed. Other kids either looked at me like I was from Mars or would say, "Cool! Will you name a dinosaur after me?"

By ninth grade I realized it would be a lot of work to be all three of the -ologists, so I dropped geologist and waffled between the remaining two of my passions. Archeologist or paleontologist? I couldn't make up my mind. I liked them equally! I decided I'd go to college and try them both out, then hopefully I'd find I liked one more than the other. I would focus on that then, if I felt so inclined, come back and focus on the other one. Or maybe just do them both at once. I still had a few years to figure it out.

Meanwhile, I was a member of a huge competing marching band. I discovered, over the course of competitions, that I actually do have somewhat of a competitive streak. I enjoyed it. It was lots of fun! Then it was concert season and I made it in Symphonic Band! Once again, my competitive streak emerged as I refused to be left in the musical dust as we rehearsed Sleigh Ride (I didn't realize they played that every year so the 10-12th graders already knew the music). The idea of music began to niggle. I didn't want it to. I was perfectly happy being an archaeologist/paleontologist. But I REALLY liked my band director. She was so cool!

I finally made that heart-wrenching switch from archaeology/paleontology to music.
It wasn't until my third year of college that I changed my mind about studying music education and switched over to ethnomusicology.

My undergrad didn't have an ethnomusicology program so I made sure to make most of my classes outside of music anthropology-oriented. My fifth (and final) year of undergrad I took an archaeology class! It was FUN! I had such a blast. But I was, once again, disillusioned about archaeology. My professor informed us that most archaeologists are hired by companies to scout out an area where they want to develop. They have to tediously walk up and down grid formations, looking for pottery sherds and indications of fire pits and whatnot. In fact, most archaeologists - even the ones that go off on cool digs - spend most of their time with stupid pieces of pottery.

I wanted to find bones. At least one of our projects involved animal bones, so that was cool.
Luckily, I have not yet been disillusioned about paleontology. I'm still convinced it's wicked cool. Dinosaurs never used pottery. I'd happily excavate fossilized dino-dung over tiny pieces of pottery any day.

Often, when I'm frustrated with music or ethnomusicology, I think, "If I went back in time, I'd be a paleontologist. Or a storm chaser."



This post was inspired by this article (LINK) and Amersands_Anonymous (LINK) who led me to it.