Diggin'

Maybe it's nothing.

Maybe, as one wag on Facebook wrote after I posted this picture on my timeline and wondered whether it was an arrowhead, Stone Age tool or a petrified shark's tooth, "It is a shard of rock that by chance is somewhat triangular shaped and looks like all the things you mentioned."

Maybe I let my imagination run wild. Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe some kid in my neighborhood spent a day fashioning a triangle out of stone in order to teach himself geometry.

Maybe.

I've long been fascinated by archeology, "the scientific study of material remains (as fossil relics, artifacts, and monuments) of past human life and activities," as Merriam-Webster defines it. I don't recall what sparked my interest. Perhaps it was reading my parents' copy of Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" when I was a kid. Von Daniken theorizes that the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge and the giant head statues on Easter Island, among other artifacts and monuments, were produced by extraterrestrials or by humans with help from ET's.

As I've written before, the book also sparked my life-long interest in UFO's (see August 7, 2011, "Sucked Back In").

My other blog, The Backside of America, focuses on archeology in a completely non-scientific way. My fellow contributors and I share an interest in taking pictures of forgotten highway overpasses, abandoned factories, dilapidated barns, rusting cars, run-down diners, faded signs painted on old brick buildings, sanctuaries hidden in the woods, etc. and writing about them. Sometimes we just share our photos; other times we provide some insight into why we took the pictures, and the history behind the subjects.

Time machines don't exist. Therefore, the best way to travel into the past is through researching and understanding who our ancestors were, how they lived, where they lived, what they did, how they died, what they loved, what they hated, what they made, and so forth.

On my recent trip to New York City with my family (see April 23, 2012, "NYC Three Times"), I was surrounded by skyscrapers, traveled underground on subways, rode in cabs on jam-packed streets -- the total urban experience.

As much as I love being in Manhattan or Boston or other big cities, I find myself trying to imagine what the land beneath the concrete and metal looked like 500 years ago, when rivers flowed, trees swayed in the breezes, animals roamed freely and Native Americans lived in small villages and planted and hunted for their food.

Then, I think about what our world will look like 500 years in the future. Will it be a Space Age utopia, like we've been hearing about for decades upon decades? Will the population maintain a manageable level? Will there ever be a universal peace? Will we control greenhouse gases? If not, will humans die out, and Mother Nature reclaim the landscape

Bigger questions than I usually write about or think about, but ones that pop into my head from time to time. And when I stumble across something as simple as a triangular stone that may or may not be an artifact from an earlier citizen of my neighborhood, I can't help but be fascinated by how quickly things change in our world, and how quickly we forget those who came before us, and to learn from them.

Maybe all these thoughts are coming to me lately because, having recently turned 47, I'm starting to truly feel middle-aged. I listen to the music that my nearly-10-year-old son, Owen, likes -- trance techno -- and shake my head. I see an older man, perhaps 65, shopping at the grocery store and wearing sandals and sporting an earring, and I identify more with him. "I can see him flying his freak flag during the Summer of Love," I tell myself.

I look all around me everywhere I go and see everybody consumed by smart phones and I wonder about the questions that archeologists 200 years from now will have about all these gadgets, which, as cool as they may be now, will seem so primitive in the not-too-distant future.

And I wonder about my own legacy. Am I raising my kids the best way I know how? Will they turn out OK, and be happy with who they are and what they do? Will sales of my short story collection soar after my death? Will I ever put out that UFO concept album I've been talking about for years? And the companion novel? Will I publish the children's books I've been tinkering with for the last couple years?

Let's hope the answers to those questions are: yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.