The Logical Lizard

Sometime last year, my co-host Steve Arnold and I had a most interesting conversation with LMNO Productions owner, and our Executive Producer, Eric Schotz. He told us that if he was developing a show about, for example, an emergency room, or armed forces veterans returning from overseas, there would be a number of options; a number of different people to interview and work with. “But I can’t go out and get two other guys who do what you do. The show is about you.” So, no pressure.

But really, I am joking. It is an honor and a privilege to find yourself in a situation where major companies have put a great deal of money, time and effort into making a rather unique adventure series about you and your buddy. Steve had me laughing the other day when he said: “I want our show to be the best meteorite hunting program on television!” It is a most unusual topic for a series, but I do know one thing: wherever I go and whatever kind of people I meet there seems to be a universal fascination with our rather odd profession: “Really? You look for meteorites. You mean, like shooting stars?”

The Logical Lizard (left) and professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold scouting locations for the new "Meteorite Men" TV series. Photograph by Margaret Haddad.

The fact that our work is so unusual and specialized means we are actively involved in nearly every aspect of pre-production: locations, equipment, wardrobe, logistics, scheduling. We even have the pleasure of inviting some favorite academics to appear on the show with us. We are airing on the Science Channel, so Meteorite Men has to be a lot more than just an adventure series. It’s a good mix: Steve and I go out to the wild places, test new gear, develop hunting techniques, do our research, hike, dig, meet weird and colorful characters along the way, and when each adventure draws to a close we head to a lab or university to meet with one of our colleagues in academia. Will any of our finds help shed light on the mysteries of the universe? Well, maybe not every episode, but each fragment of new knowledge is a piece in the puzzle, and it doesn’t hurt to dream.

And anyway, Steve feels people are tuning in to be entertained, not to have the spotlight of universal understanding turned upon them. We’ll figure it out.

I first heard of Blondie back in the mid-1970s—long before they were international superastars—and while they were still on the indie label Private Stock. In the early days of their career they were regarded as a punk band, toured with Television, and were part of the New York underground scene, along with the Ramones, Talking Heads and other luminaries. Now, many years after the string of mega pop hits like “Heart of Glass,” “Atomic,” “Rapture,” and so on, it’s a little difficult for some to remember Blondie the way there were. But I do.

I first saw them in London in 1978. It was their initial European solo tour and they headlined at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park—a large and elegant seated venue, a bit like the Rialto only bigger and fancier. I was a young lad with two tickets to see this “unknown” American act, and really, I couldn’t give one away. Nobody wanted to go with me. The kids I went to school with, blissfully unaware of the punk rock revolution fomenting in their own town, were still spacing out to Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes.

I finally convinced a biker friend of mine, John, to take the train with me up to north London. He didn’t much care much for live music but he was always up for an adventure. We arrived early and took our seats—eighth row, right in the center.

After a while, the warm-up band started playing and they were extremely weird. I remember that the house lights were left on, as if Blondie didn’t want to take the chance of being upstaged. There were four guys in this group: the guitarist and bassist both sang, and they had a demented keyboard player who pounded on a bizarre stack of synthesizers that had wires and cables hanging all over the place. Their songs were jangly and dissonant. The show was energetic and mildly interesting, but they were a little too odd for me. When Blondie came on, the theater wasn’t even half full, but I didn’t care. Debbie Harry was only in her thirties then, and as lovely a rock ‘n’ roll deity as I had ever seen float across the stage.

On the way home, I asked John what he thought about the concert. “Well, Blondie were okay, but that warm-up band were amazing! They’re going to be huge.” John really didn’t know a thing about music so I dismissed his prediction as the babblings of an amateur. I later found out that the strange opening act were called XTC.

I’ve seen Blondie many times in the intervening years, and I danced to “Sunday Girl” at my high school prom. Blondie’s supremely talented bassplayer, Gary Valentine, was let go in the late 1970s and they were never quite as good without him, although they still play his wistful song “I Am Always Touched by Your Presence Dear.” From the time they came back to London after the release of Parallel Lines, there were never again empty seats in the theaters and Blondie were instantly adored.

I once saw Debbie and romantic partner/songwriter/Blondie guitarist Chris Stein do a secret show at CBGB’s with a pickup band. I sat in a cozy little VIP section with Matt Dillon on one side of me, and the Talking Heads on the other. It was pretty cool. In the 1990s, my band used to rehearse in a room next to Blondie at an elite studio in New York, and we got to chat and hang out a little. Chris Stein and I both played Steinbergers, and he’d painted out the “berger” on his guitar, so it just read “Stein,” which I found to be very clever.

The Logical Lizard hanging out with Blondie lead guitarist Chris Stein in New York, back in the rock 'n' roll days. Photo by Lach.

Last year, when Blondie set out on their big reunion tour I happened to be in NYC and took my brother and my former 1980s sweetheart to see them at the Sony Theater in Times Square. I assumed that the band would be old and tired, but it was easily the best Blondie show I ever saw: they were tight, extremely well rehearsed, full of energy, better dressed and sharper than ever, and cracked through a set of greatest hits. The song list was predictable, but who doesn’t want to hear “Hanging on the Telephone,” “Dreaming,” and all those other pop classics?

So, not surprisingly, I was expecting something similar at the Desert Diamond show this past Tuesday. Blondie, right here in my adopted home town, at a small venue! I took my dear friend Lisa Marie—a talented local silversmith, a serious music lover, and long-time Blondie fan who had never actually seen them in concert. I was a little concerned when I got my first peek at the venue. It looked more like a hotel ballroom, where you’d hold a wedding reception, than a concert hall.

When Blondie came on at about 8 pm (awfully early for New York rockers) they blasted straight into “Call Me,” which makes for a hell of a good opener. Debbie was in a bright red dress with mismatched Converse sneakers: one red and one blue, just like Clem on the cover of Parallel Lines). Unfortunately, the sound was dreadful, like listening to a transistor radio through two sheets of soggy cardboard. Most of the audience were of retirement age and, despite the very modest volume, I noticed a lady next to me wearing earplugs.

As an original fan, I felt it my duty to show the band some love, so Lisa and I ran to the front and sidled up to the stage, right by Debbie. Periodically we were yelled at, or ordered back to our seats by security, but we made the most of it.

Debbie Harry onstage with Blondie, Desert Diamond Casino, Tucson, September 1, 2009. Photo by Caroline Palmer.

Only Debbie, Chris Stein, and drummer Clem Burke remain from the original lineup. Last June, Jimmy Destri, the keyboard player and one of the key songwriters was still with them, and I really missed his presence here in Tucson. He’s a great performer. So, the sound sucked, the audience were mostly old and confused, and Blondie were finishing off their national tour with a Tuesday night show in a partially-filled casino in Tucson, Arizona. It must have been a bit of a downer for them, but they were troopers and didn’t let it show. They surprised me with “Fade Away And Radiate,” not exactly a conventional pop hit, and a long ska/reggae jam in the middle of “The Tide is High.”

So, I’ve been to better Blondie shows, but in all these years it was the first time I ever got to see them elbows-on-the-stage in a small venue. They may be older, but you know what, so am I, and Blondie still kick the pants off of most contemporary acts. I’ll pony up my cash to see them anytime.

A few days ago I rose early and went out for a walk. It was a lovely morning and I thought a brisk stroll would clear my head and help prepare me for another long and busy day. As I reached the end of my driveway, I noticed what I took to be some garbage lying in the road in front of my house. I like a tidy place, so I picked it up with the intention of disposing of it properly.

It was not, strictly speaking, garbage but rather a 188-page, full color, printed Avon catalog in a clear plastic bag. A lot of care had been put into the photography, design and printing of the catalog, but it had been treated like garbage. I think it’s fair to assume that a local representative, or the rep’s hired help, had left it there for me, in the gravel, on the road, much like a cat might leave a dead field mouse on your doorstep. How very thoughtful! I am not married and no women live in my house (except my cat), so we have little need for makeup, except perhaps when the All Souls Procession rolls around, and somehow All Souls doesn’t really feel like an Avon-style event to me.

The Avon rep had not mailed the catalog to me, or knocked on my door to ask if I would like to receive a copy. No, it had been deposited on the street in front of my house. As I continued with my walk, I noticed that every single residence in my neighborhood had also been a victim of unsolicited dumping. Some catalogs were in driveways, some on the ground near mailboxes, some randomly thrown on city roads. Scores of them, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, who knows? It was most unsightly.

Advertising or littering?

This isn’t advertising, it’s littering. If Avon, or any other company, feels the need to bother me with promotional material they should be required to pay postage and mail it to me, not throw it on the ground for me to clean up later. Northwest Explorer does the same thing, so do those entertaining Jehova’s Witnesses (always so well dressed and very serious), and so do the Fill A Bag For A Vet People (the bag people I don’t mind, it’s charity, and they are trying help our needy veterans), but the rest should be held accountable. Why should I, and every one of my neighbors, have to walk to the end of our driveways to pick up somebody else’s discarded paperwork?

Imagine if everyone did it. Imagine if everyone who mailed unwanted stuff to you—supermarkets, car lube joints, credit card companies, bogus loan outfits, and the rest of them—left their junk mail in a heap in front of your house, and your neighbors’ houses. Greater Tucson would rapidly become a king-size rubbish dump. It’s like spam, only worse. At least spam doesn’t burn up natural resources (water, ink, paper, electricity for printing presses, staplers, paper folders, and gasoline for driving from house to house) to quite the same degree.

Out of fairness I telephoned my Avon rep, a Ms. Debbie Calvillo (her name and contact info were rubber stamped on the back of the catalog in barely-legible blue letters), to ask her opinion on the advertising vs. littering issue. She was polite and friendly but seemed confused, so in order to clarify I asked if she felt it was okay to drop catalogs in front of people’s houses—an act that some would consider littering. She quickly asked for my address, “So I won’t litter in front of your house any more,” she explained. I asked again if she felt it was okay to distribute advertising material in this way and she said: “Yes, I get it in front of my house all the time.” At which point she hung up on me. I guess that means if somebody does it to you, it’s okay to do it back to somebody else.

I appreciate that Ms. Calvillo is likely a nice young lady trying to make a few extra bucks and I certainly do not begrudge her that. It’s hard to make ends meet for most of us. I also don’t have any kind of beef with Avon. I’m sure they make many people happy with their products. But littering is littering, unwanted junk mail is curse upon us all, and I expect reputable companies to be more responsible about the way in which they advertise. I figure a couple of letters to the BBB and the Tucson City Manager on the ad dumping issue are warranted. Anyone care to join me? If we don’t do something about the rabid and uncontrolled advertising in our community, you’ll one day soon have to climb over piles of unwanted paper just to reach your own mailbox on your own property.

And don’t even get me started on the highway billboards. “Only another bla-bla miles until ‘The Thing.’”

Yesterday, a nice gentleman emailed the company offices and ordered a meteorite. He explained it was a gift for his grandson. He had shown the grandson our Meteorite Men pilot, and said that “all he can talk about is growing up to be a meteorite hunter.” The gentleman went on to say:

“PS: Please tell Mr. Notkin that he has replaced Dennis Anderson, driver of the world-famous monster truck Grave Digger, as my grandson’s favorite superhero.”

Well, I thought this comment rather exciting, especially since I used to work in the comic book industry and have always been quite the superhero fan. Especially X-Men, Iron Man and Fantastic Four. Being a bit of a tinkerer, it’s the gadgets and gizmos they use that really move me, and I always particularly liked the way Tony Stark initially devised the Iron Man chest plate to keep his heart going. In the original comic book, it was a piece of Vietcong shrapnel lodged in his chest that threatened his life; in Jon Favreau’s brilliant and apocalyptic film version (that even beats out even the second X-Men film as my favorite superhero movie) the V.C. were replaced by generic Middle East terrorist villains.

Last night, I wrote back to the grandfather, told him his email had made my day, and that we’d be sending along a signed Meteorite Men photo for his grandson, in addition to the order. We always like to send a little gift for kids who enjoyed the show. I then posted an excerpt from his email on my Facebook page (names and personal details removed, of course). Well, this immediately became the most popular status update on my page for some long time. A few friends made comments about action figures in my future (I wish!) but the most unexpected post was:

“Dude, that is so cool! You just saved a kid from redneck future!”

This morning I received a follow-up email from the gentleman:

“About the superhero thing: I made the mistake of explaining to him that in as much as you can’t jump higher than the tallest building or stop bullets with your bare hands you couldn’t really be considered a superhero. My grandson then explained, very slowly so I wouldn’t get lost, that while some superheroes were born with powers, like Superman, most are normal humans who use technical devices to make them superheroes. He said that made you like Batman.”

Superheroes? Unfortunately not really, but we do use secret weapons whenever possible. Photograph by Caroline Palmer © Aerolite Meteorites

I am hiring the grandson as soon as he’s old enough!

The gentleman then gave me a friendly warning: I should be careful about giving his grandson too much encouragement, because in about ten years the Meteorite Men “may have some serious competition.” I’ll welcome it, and his prediction at once reminded me of the end of my favorite classic Star Trek episode “A Piece of the Action”—that’s “the gangster one” for you non-Trek fans. In the final scene, Bones owns up that he has accidentally left his communicator on the surface of the alien planet Iotia. Spock posits that since they are a highly intelligent and imitative humanoid race, the Iotians will doubtless take the communicator apart, discover how it works, and adapt the new technology for their own purposes. Captain Kirk wraps up the episode by joking: “Well, in a few years, the Iotians may demand a piece of our action.”

I found the episode online and it was great fun to watch that scene again—for research purposes only, of course. By the way, have you noticed how these Internet TV sites are cropping up all over the place and have wasted no time in cramming commercials into their “broadcasts”? Forget I mentioned it. If you want to see “PIece of the Action,” please buy, borrow, or rent the DVD. Really, it’s too fabulous an episode to be chopped up with toothpaste ads.

So, much as I might have wished, as a child, to be an actual superhero, the most satisfying thing in real life is to inspire—by what we do—a little boy to dream big and follow his heart.

Well, I could go for the Meteorite Men action figure too, I guess.

Entry number 2 in an ongoing series chronicling the making of Meteorite Men, the science/adventure show I co-host with world famous meteorite hunter Steve Arnold. Exclusive to TucsonCitizen.com

Okay, so we have the deal. It’s all very exciting. Our friends at Science Channel have ordered an entire series of Meteorite Men shows and that means we have a lot of work to do. Here is the scary part: from concept to its world premiere, our one-hour pilot had a luxurious seventeen months to germinate. And we knew where we were going to shoot as well. Steve had made amazing discoveries at two different sites within the U.S., and we were still working at both of them, so the location choices were easy. Now we have a clean slate to work with and it gets a little more complicated—and we surely do not have the seventeen months to spend on each episode this time around.

Steve and I put our heads together and came up with a list of places we wanted to go explore: places that were perhaps scenic, interesting, historic, strange, or fascinating for one reason or another—and where we could also find meteorites. Well, where we hope we could find meteorites. There were over a hundred place names on that list, so we had to whittle it down somewhat.

Next comes the equipment. We are gearheads and experimenting with new, exciting, cool-science gadgets is one of the best parts of doing this job. We’re working with a few outfits to acquire fun things to play with on camera, some of which are entirely new and not even on the market yet. Other devices we will be designing and building ourselves. In the pilot Steve says something like: “You can’t go to the meteorite hunting aisle of your favorite mega-store and get the things you need.” It’s very true, so when the things we want are not available we just build them.

Geoff and Steve: Two gearheads move out for a day of exploration. The big disk behind my head is part of one of our specialized metal detectors. Photograph by Caroline Palmer.

While the gear is being sorted out we have to plan the scouting. I have a bad habit of thinking: It’ll be fine, let’s just get up to the site and figure it all out, but when it comes to expeditions, that’s a not-very-helpful facet of my spontaneous personality. Planning is important. It’s important when it’s just two guys out hunting in the desert with a couple of metal detectors, and it’s vital when you have a film crew, and a support staff, and all kinds of vehicles, cameras, and hi-tech gear trundling around with you. If the schedule is off, you suddenly have a lot of expensive television professionals standing around waiting for the hovercraft to arrive, or something.

So, in order to hopefully minimize scheduling disasters, Steve and I, and some of our producers and teammates have been out and about making the rounds. It is a very good idea to visit potentially hazardous locations with just a couple of people, before bringing the entire troupe in.

And that is how I was almost struck by lightning.

Last week I was out scouting in the mountains. We had a pretty solid report of a meteorite-related structure being discovered in the Chiricahuas. We are hoping to do a little filming here in Tucson, next year. It’s a natural with the world’s biggest gem show in town, so some contemporaneous Arizona field work wouldn’t be amiss. I traveled up to the site with a friend who knows the area really well. My 4WD truck has a big V6 engine and lots of clearance but there were some spots on this trail that I thought were going to be too much for us. It was surely one of the roughest off-road tracks I have ever traveled.

Eventually, we made it to the side of a slope so precarious we just sat there, several thousand feet up, with the wheels slowly spinning and sending a stream of rock chips cascading down the slopes behind us. It burns gas and it’s bad for the tires. “I think this is as far as we go,” I said. So we suited up, got our backpacks, rock hammers, metal detectors, a couple of large-caliber revolvers (you don’t want to be out in those parts without some serious protection), cameras, binoculars, and anything else we could carry, and started hiking. Remember please, it is August in southern Arizona, and that’s more gear that you really want on a hot day.

We’d only gone a few hundred yards when unpleasantly dark storm clouds began rushing furiously over the mountain peak ahead of us. We weren’t sure if the whooshing sound was rain or wind and it turned out to be both. We ran back to the truck as a massive downpour started. Water flowed under the wheels of my truck, parked awkwardly at an angle on the steep, steep track, because I didn’t dare leave only the breaks to defy that much gravity.

The big storms do leave behind some lovely sunsets. Photograph © Geoffrey Notkin

We waited it out. It wasn’t too bad. Lightning hit all around; the ground breathed in moisture and I recalled cowering from European thunderstorms as a kid in London. After about 20 or 30 minutes the front passed, the sky cleared up considerably and we got out of the truck. We were both readjusting our gear when lightning struck a telephone pole not thirty feet from where we were standing. It was one of those freaky and astonishing moments when you hear the crackling before the thunderclap, and that means it’s awfully close. The blast knocked my buddy’s hat off, and left us with ringing in the ears and nasty headaches for the rest of the day.

All that, and the site didn’t turn out to be what we’d hoped. But that is okay too and exactly why we do the scouting first. There are plenty more places to go, and I’ll be taking you along with us.

When a plea from a British school teacher was posted to an international science listserve, Nevada meteorite hunter Ralph “Sonny” Clary made the educator’s seemingly impossible request come true.

In May of 2009, Matthew Smith a teacher in Liverpool, England sent an email to an online forum devoted to meteorites. With a very small acquisitions budget, Mr. Smith was hoping to acquire a few space rocks, to assist with presentations for his students. Sonny Clary, a highly experienced meteorite hunter based in Nevada had just the thing.

Meteorite hunter Ralph "Sonny" Clary takes a compass bearing during a desert expedition

In 2007 Sonny made an extraordinary discovery on an ancient dry lake bed in the American Southwest. While scouting for possible hunting locations he came across a debris field of stone meteorite fragments. He collected numerous pieces and donated representative samples to academia, so the new meteorite could be studied and classified.

After reading Mr. Smith’s request, Sonny packed up more than 90 of the meteorites he’d found, and shipped them to the UK—as a cosmic gift.

More than 90 space rocks donated to a British school by Sonny arrive in the UK

When asked how much the meteorites were worth, Sonny replied: “I feel the true value of these meteorites is being lucky enough to hunt for and find them, and being able to share that excitement with the students by donating to their school and allowing them to experience holding and owning a rock from the asteroid belt. This may help spark the next generation of meteorite enthusiasts.”

He is modest indeed. In total, the meteorite specimens that Sonny donated weighed about five pounds. A conservative estimate would put their retail value at $2,000.

Sonny (left) and his great friend, the late Professor Jim Kriegh planning a desert expedition

Mr. Smith will be writing an article about Sonny’s generous donation for an upcoming issue of Meteorite magazine. The quarterly science journal is published by the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences in Fayetteville, but the editorial team, Nancy and Dr. Larry Lebofsky, are Tucson residents.

English school kids showing off their new space rocks

Looking at the photographs of the enthralled English schoolchildren holding their new meteorites reminded me of something Alexis R. Faust, educator and executive director of the Flandrau Science Center said to me during a recent visit: “It gives you a different perspective on the world when you see it through the eyes of children. It’s rejuvenating.”

The author, looking very haggard (above left) and Sonny after a particularly grueling expedition. Sonny is an expert camper and outdoorsman and I've learned a lot from him.

Sonny Clary is a great example of how one individual can get a classrom full of children excited about science. Those look like some happy kids to me, and I can only imagine how amazed I would have been—when I was a school boy in England back in the 1970s—if an American adventurer had mailed me a space rock.

My compliments to Sonny.

Yesterday I received a phone call from a most serious sounding web promotion/search engine optimization guy. He represented “the biggest company in the industry” and claimed to have hundreds of thousands of clients. Not himself, obviously, but the company. Maybe it was true; don’t know, don’t care. For many years I handled my own web promotion and now I have a local tech genius who consults for me. I like to spend my money here in town whenever possible.

Back to the phone call: The caller seemed much more like a salesman than a tech person, bandying about phrases such as “activating all your listings” and “checking your keywords for optimization,” which are semi-nonsensical anyway, and probably intended to befuddle the web novice. He then asked me to confirm that I was the owner of megaspacenews.info and went on to exclaim, very enthusiastically, how sure he was that I would be wanting to expand my site and promote it on a national, or maybe even international level.

I couldn’t help laughing, but I did try not to laugh directly at him.

“That site is an April Fool’s prank. I’m a science writer and that is a one-page site that I put up as a joke.”

“Oh. I guess you won’t be needing our services then,” he replied, and apologized for calling me. It was immediately clear that I wouldn’t be spending any money with him. Game over.

The fake graphic banner for one of my fake April Fool's websites

I have the greatest affection and respect for my colleagues in the meteorite world. Well, nearly all of them. There are a couple of extremely nasty people in my field, but we can save that story for another day. Let me rephrase my statement: I have the greatest respect and admiration for nearly all of my colleagues in the meteorite world, but I am also a career prankster, and I do so enjoy a complicated little joke at the expense of my friends and peers. I go for “the long prank” as a con artist might say, or “the overly elaborate prank.” A burning paper bag of something unpleasant on the neighbor’s porch just does not do it for me.

So, when my calendar announces it is late March I start thinking about what type of April Fool’s jape I will foist upon my usually good-natured science comrades. Since we are all such a bunch of modern Internet junkies, I usually end up with something that lives and laughs within the digital realm. The past few years I have gone to considerable trouble to construct fake websites featuring a science article that looks and feels genuine, but with content so absurd that only the most stoned readers could possibly think it real. At least, it seems that way to me. The truth is, many people still get taken in.

This spring I purchased the domain name megaspacenews.info, for the amazingly low price of $1.99. There was some kind of .info sale going on. I guess that domain suffix is not as hot as the originators hoped it might be. I came up with the tag line “BECAUSE IT’S YOUR UNIVERSE TOO,” and went on to type up a nonsensical ditty intentionally filled with misinformation, entitled “Bush to Join Panel on Meteorite Alertness, Defense and Evasion” and built the site around it. I tossed in a few genuine web ads to make the thing look real, added a nice astronomy background image, inserted a whole lot of links to fabricated stories (and one real one that sounds crazy but is actually true: “Texas dog finds rock from outer space”) and, shazam!, a fake website in no time. Actually, it takes a lot of time, and one of my ex-girlfriends used to chastise me endlessly: “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” And of course the answer to that was: “No, I really don’t. Time spent on April Fool’s is time spent well.”

So, here is my April Fool’s joke for 2009. Don’t miss “THIS WEEK’S TOP ASTRONOMY AND SCIENCE STORIES” links at the bottom of the page; my favorite part.

The good people in meteorites and astronomy are not the only ones to be targeted by my deformed sense of humor. That just wouldn’t be right. I’ve had my fair share of fun with esteemed colleagues in biology and paleontology as well. A few years ago, my good friend Tom Caggiano—a highly skilled fossil hunter with a devilish sense of humor, and secretary of the New Jersey Paleontological Society—invited me to concoct a bogus article for the April edition of their journal, the Paleontograph.

I wrote a lengthy review of a book that never existed, entitled: Bone Idol: My Life in Time. I so amused myself devising quotes in the author’s overblown writing style, that I called up a friend, in the middle of the night, and read a few hundred words to her. I laughed myself silly; she was not amused.

I fabricated this cover for Arthur Burleigh Chaplin's non-existent autobiography, as part of an April Fool's joke on the paleontology community.

Ostensibly the autobiography of a famous paleontologist, Arthur Burleigh Chaplin, Bone Idol is a Forrest Gump-like tale in which “Burley” survives the Titantic’s fatal 1912 voyage, appears in one of the films by his cousin, Charlie Chaplin, talks his way onto Roy Chapman Andrews’ Central Asiatic Expedition of 1922, flies with Eagle Squadron during the Battle of Britain in World War II, works for Special Operations, discovers some kind of strange new dinosaur, gets involved in shenanigans during the Cold War, moves to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s and lives out the last of his 102 years in the kooky town of Jerome, Arizona. In other words, a ludicrous fantasy, but it was great fun to write. I even designed a cover for the book.

Quite recently, I received an email from the editor of a paleontology publication asking, very courteously, if she could quote from my review of Bone Idol for their newsletter. I wrote back, thanked her for her interest and said of course she could use anything she liked, but was she aware that the article was an April Fool’s prank and the book didn’t actually exist (although I so enjoyed creating it that perhaps it lives on in some alternate universe). Shortly thereafter, I received a very terse reply: “Well, I guess we won’t be needing it then.” (I think she was embarrassed, poor thing).

My regular readers will now immediately understand why I am concerned about the veracity of information presented on the web, as discussed in last week’s tale: “Ning Probably Means ‘Unisex,’ The Marginal Merits Of Wikipedia, And William Gibson Was Right Again.” If I can cook up a fake website in a few hours, then so can a lot of other people.

The enthusiastic salesman who called and tried to convince me to spend upwards of $70 a month on optimizing a one-page joke website didn’t spend much time looking at the site himself. There is just the one goofy made-up story there, along with some links that lead to “error message” pages. Yes, they are keen to sell you web optimization services, but I don’t think they are doing a whole lot of research on the sites they target.

Well, I suppose I have really let the cat out of the bag now and you all think you will be ready for me next April. Hah! Now I shall be forced to devise an April Fool’s prank of Moriarty-like complexity to perplex my dear TucsonCitizen.com readers. And really, I do it all out of affection.

The first known mention can be found in the U of A Register from 1892, which rather grandly states the university will “make the Museum of Geology and Mineralogy an adequate representative of the ores and minerals of Arizona, as well as a place for the deposit of everything illustrative of the practical workings of the mines, mills, and furnaces.”

Curatorial Specialist Sven Bailey patiently studied the history of the University of Arizona Mineral Collection and recorded the five other temporary homes it occupied before relocating to the spacious and airy basement of the Flandrau Science Center.

A view across part of the main gallery of the University of Arizona's wonderful mineral museum. Photograph by Geoffrey Notkin

If you walk into the Science Center, past the planetarium, maybe pausing for a moment to admire the Mars Wall, and then scamper down two long flights of stairs decorated with brightly painted murals, you will come upon a geologist’s dreamscape. The main collection comprises some 19,000 specimens, plus 7,000 micromounts. Of special delight to me was the mysterious Silverbell iron meteorite. Discovered in 1939, somewhere northwest of Tucson, the exact find location has been lost to science, and the UA Mineral Museum has the largest piece in the world. In addition, I was intrigued by a mock-up of the famous Tucson Ring meteorite, appearing as it did back in the 1800s during the least glamorous part of its life (it was once used as an anvil in the Tucson presidio, and has now been promoted to the rather magnificent centerpiece of the Smithsonian’s meteorite display in Washington, D.C.).

At the mineral museum, a detailed recreation with full-scale models demonstrates how the Tucson Ring and Carleton iron meteorites were once used in a blacksmith's shop in frontier-era Tucson. The actual meteorites are now part of the Smithsonian's collection in Washington, D.C. Photograph courtesy of Flandrau Science Center.

“Our collection is actively used for research, and the curator is currently building a new mineral database,” Sven tells me. He is a tall, soft spoken, and thoughtful man. He seems wonderfully at ease in the beautiful and elegant underground collection; he could almost be the custodian of a secret treasure mine. “Some of our meteorites and minerals are studied by Planetary Sciences,” he continues. “And they are also available for students. Some university instructors lead field trips to the museum and assign extra credit.” Now, that’s my idea of school Extra credit for looking at rocks!

This spectacular example of the mineral pyrargyrite from Hartenstein Germany is just one of 19,000 specimens in the museum's main collection. Photograph by Sven Bailey / Courtesy of UA Mineral Museum

The mineral museum welcomes school programs, and children of all ages have enjoyed the remarkable collection with a concentration of students from First through Eighth Grades. Last year over 100 school groups visited the Flandrau and the mineral museum, and that translates into a lot of kids getting a first-hand look at geology, mineralogy, mining history, and meteorites.

The museum is also open to the general public and Sven and his colleagues are available to answer mineral-related questions. For many years, Senior Curatorial Specialist Shirley Wetmore, served in a “first contact” capacity with visitors who stopped by with samples hoping they had found a meteorite or rare mineral. Shirley was universally liked, did a great deal to further the public’s understanding of rocks, minerals, and meteorites, and recently retired from the museum.

Sven is a hard working man, handling the equivalent of several different jobs at once. In addition to showing visitors around and answering questions, he is engaged in an ongoing project to photograph the mineral collection (see photos on this page), keeps the website up to date, and helps design and coordinate signage and special exhibitions.

A large and intricate specimen of natural silver from the museum's collection. Photograph by Sven Bailey / Courtesy of UA Mineral Museum

It always feels good to see people happy in their work and Sven is especially enthusiastic when he leads me into a back room, opens an impressive safe, and produces a genuinely staggering specimen of leaf gold. Found on the Crystalline-Alabama Claim in Jamestown, California, it was recently acquired by the museum with the rest of the Hubert de Monmonier collection, a significant group of minerals, never before seen in public. Approximately 870 pieces, including some very important specimens, and 300 books, were donated by the de Monmonier estate. A stunning exhibit of some of the finest pieces from that collection is currently on display in the Flandrau’s main exhibition space.

So, doesn’t all of this sound great? A world-class mineral museum with active ongoing research programs, rare meteorites, beautiful displays, a friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff keen to interact with, and inform the public. Too good to be true? Almost. Due to budget cuts the University of Arizona Mineral Museum is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, and to school groups by appointment. If the feared permanent closure of the Flandrau Science Center does take place, what will become of this extraordinary collection?

Curatorial Specialist Sven Bailey and a leaf gold specimen from the Hubert de Monmonier collection, recently acquired by the Mineral Museum. Photograph by Geoffrey Notkin.

117 years ago, UA set out to build a mineral collection that would reflect the epic geologic and mining history of Arizona. They succeeded admirably. Now this great collection is open for only two days a week, and even that may be nothing but a temporary stay of execution. After six years with the museum, the talented Sven Bailey is moving on to a new job unconnected with the university. “Will we miss his expertise terribly,” said Executive Director Alexis Faust. But with the museum and the Science Center facing an uncertain future, who can blame Sven for moving on? Maybe if the Flandrau had a sufficient operating budget he would have stayed.

In a recent letter to Tucson Weekly, former associate director of the Flandrau, Joe Ruggiero, shared this fine sentiment: “For 35 years, through good times and bad, Flandrau provided this community with some measure of wonder, a place where one could come face to face with phenomena and see the beauty of the sky explained in vivid detail.”

Alexis, the current director states: “We have wonderful resources here. There should be a conduit for that information to get to the people of Tucson, the taxpayers.”

The Flandrau Science Center and the UA Mineral Museum are part of that conduit. The mineral museum is an extremely important and unique educational and historical resource. Allowing it to be closed, and therefore lost to the people of Tucson, would be a crime against science.

Tucson is the astronomy capital of the world, I am told by Astronomy Coordinator Michael Terenzoni during a recent visit to the Flandrau Science Center. “People come here from all over the world to do astronomy; to build observatories.”

Michael also informs me that people identify a planetarium as a source of valid information and I, of course, agree with him. “When we have an event in the skies, people come here to find out about it.”

So what happens when they arrive at Tucson’s wonderful Flandrau to find it closed?

In front of the Flandrau Science Center: The large white dome houses the planetarium, and the smaller dome, far right, is the observatory. The U of A Mineral Museum is located in the basement, and the Henry Moore-like sculpture on the lawn cradles a splendid iron meteorite. This internationally recognized institution must be kept alive at all costs. Image courtesy of Flandrau Science Center.

Author Grace Flandrau could informally be described as the Science Center’s mom. A successful novelist, columnist, radio show host, and frequent visitor to Tucson, she died in 1971, and a year later the University of Arizona used a bequest from her estate “to fund a facility that would increase public understanding and appreciation of science.” The official website goes on to say:

Originally known as The Grace H. Flandrau Planetarium, the facility was part of the UA Department of Astronomy. Its location on campus, near the Astronomy Department, Optical Sciences Center, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and historic Steward Observatory, reflects its continuing connections to the research community. The Planetarium was designed by Tucson architectural firm Blanton and Company and opened its door to the public in 1975.

Previous directors have included my friend, the late O. Richard Norton, a highly respected science writer and astronomer, and Richard R. Willey author of the short book The Tucson Meteorites: Their History from Frontier Arizona to the Smithsonian, which chronicles one of Tucson’s most enduring and mysterious legends. What the Flandrau website doesn’t mention is that the planetarium and mineral museum were almost forced to close their doors permanently earlier this year, and manage to maintain minimal opening hours due to the generosity of donors and supporters.

My initial plan was to conduct an interview with Alexis R. Faust, the current Excecutive Director of the Flandrau, then make a short visit to the superb U of A Mineral Museum, housed in the Flandrau’s basement. I thought I might get two interesting columns out of the one visit. I was late for my meeting and waited, briefly and comfortably in the conference room, for Alexis. I was graciously served good coffee, cold spring water and some snacks. My misguided belief that I would be satisfied by a short visit to these two astonishing resources was just that—misguided. I was there for half the day.

“The greatest economic value is the intelligence of people,” Alexis told me within the first couple of minutes. “Knowledge is the currency of the future.” And I was immediately and entirely captivated by her devotion to learning and her observations and predictions—both remarkable and numerous—about the future of education. “The mind is an amazing thing before we beat it to death with rote memorization, prejudice, and fear.”

To my surprise I did not hear any complaints or bitterness about budget cuts and the partial closing of the Science Center. Although the remaining staff have contracts that only run until December, the pervading view seems to be that when cuts need to be made, the money has to come from somewhere. But there is plenty of optimism among the few determined educators who walk through the quiet and nearly empty buildings.

Under the dome: The science fiction-like projector generates astral light for planetarium shows. Image courtesy of Flandrau Science Center.

“We’re not just sitting here,” Alexis elaborated. “We’re writing grants and raising funds so we can bridge this period of time. We are dedicated to finding it, and we are competing against the rest of the country for those funds, so we have to be as good as we can be.” With their their passion for education, their portable planetarium shows, a fine meteorite collection, and “the largest to-scale model of Mars anywhere in the world,” the Flandrau’s protectors are keeping it is as good as it can be, but the public gets to enjoy their best for only two days a week.

Alexis left me with this thought: “A lot of people still come by and knock on the door. They haven’t even heard about us closing. It’s not the university’s fault. I am incredibly grateful that we’re as alive as we are. Education is not getting funded the way it needs to be funded, and education is in the midst of a revolution. We need to keep up with it. That’s why institutions like this are so important.”

So, Alexis isn’t just hoping for better times ahead for the Flandrau, she intends to be part of a global change in not only how we teach, but how we learn. Tucson needs brilliant people like her, and Michael Terrenzoni, right here doing what they do best.

University of Arizona please take note: When times are tough, and we tighten our national belt, some will suffer, but Tucson’s venerable science center, with its international network of colleagues and collaborators, its long history of education and sharing the wonders of astronomy and the natural world, is too important, and too unique a resource to be one of those left to die in a wasteland of economic cutbacks.

As so often happens with my writing, one thing led to another. I was researching a story in Cochise County this very morning with my excellent friend, meteorite hunter Sonny Clary. Some miles west of Benson, on a quiet little side street, we saw an older gentleman working on a tractor in his front yard. We stopped to ask him a question. Sonny commented on how interesting the tractor looked and we were quickly and enthusiastically asked if we’d like to see the rest of them. Let me own up now and state that I have always loved tractors and vintage machinery. I know tractors are not for everyone but please bear with me, this story is special.

Mr. James Hadden, master of machines and guardian of a piece of American history, alongside his latest project: A 1936 International about to be restored to its former glory

James F. Hadden is eighty years old and dressed in blue overalls, with a battered but still dapper cap, bright eyes, gentle smile, a lively sense of humor and more energy and enthusiasm than many men I know who are half his age. In 1972, James sold his large dairy farm in native Pennsylvania and moved the entire family to Tucson, because of his health. The move evidently worked out very well for him in the health department.

James and his wife, Betty, have been married for 62 years, and while Betty tends her gorgeous garden of marigolds (those orange flowers are evidently heaven for butterflies; there were about twenty in rapturous attendance) and grasshopper-proof vegetable operation, James finds, fixes, and restores vintage tractors.

When I asked him how he acquired this unusual skill, James replied that he had been born with it. While still working as a farmer in Pennsylvania he would: “Work in the shop until about 11 o’clock at night fixing the tractors, then I’d get up at 4:30 to feed the cows. I was the repair man for the whole neighborhood.”

The splendid and sporty 1940s Ford 2N is one of James' favorite restorations

James’ amazing collection of tractors fills one large barn and half of a second, which also houses his labyrinthine workshop. Additional vehicles are neatly parked in front of the Hadden’s home, under a crowded car port. One of his favorite machines is the Ford 2N, a feisty red and white survivor from the early 1940s, and a monument to good old-fashioned American engineering with just a hint of Deco thrown in (the gas tank cap was beautifully streamlined). “I had to take three coats of paint off of that one to get it down to the bare metal,” James commented. He removed each piece, cleaned it and then hung it in a corner of his workshop for repainting. James pointed out a red grille perfectly positioned on the front of the Ford. “That piece was missing, and they wanted $125 for a new one, so I went to my junk pile and made one myself.” Don’t you wish you could do that in your own home when you need something?

The current project is a rusty 1936 International. Its massive wheels look as if they were fashioned from a giant’s bicycle chain, and James demonstrated how he could easily remove the bolts—cemented in place by decades of rust—after heating them with a blow torch and then chilling them down with water.

I asked James how he managed to locate these remarkable veterans of cultivation. “I go to auctions and buy them if they go reasonable. I don’t put a lot of money into them ‘cos I do all my own work.” And when I asked about the International: “I’ve got a friend in Wilcox and one day he showed up with that on a trailer and asked if I wanted it. I said, ‘Sure, I’ll take it.’”

Plenty still to do: "All the parts are there," James told me. "She just needs to be put back together." I plan on stopping by next year to see if she is up and running.

Not only are these wonderful machines in beautiful condition, they actually work. All except for one which, James admitted, was temporarily out of action due to a bad radiator. “I need to fix that,” he noted. Once a year James fires up all of these grand old cultivators, and displays them on his property for visitors to see. I have no doubt that this year, or maybe next, the venerable International will be purring away, lined up, in immaculate condition, next to its descendants.

It was such an enjoyable visit, and I was so very charmed by Mr. and Mrs. Hadden and their labors of love, that I pretty much just forgot about the other story. So, would the city of Benson, or Cochise County please give this man a grant or a knighthood and help him continue his extraordinary work.

The finest gentleman I have met all year, and the secret of James’ health, vigor and longevity? “Keeping busy is the secret. Keeping busy and doing things.” I couldn’t agree more.