Dinosaurs Rule!!!

You know Micheal Jackson or The Beatles really can't even contend with the long lasting popularity of dinosaurs. Even most of the ancient art of Greece has been overshadowed by the later products of the Roman period. There have been many great civilizations that have come and gone and their moment in the sun was surely replaced by something new and more impressive. But dinosaurs.... no way.... they still have a lasting effect that is incredible. Many immense and impressive animals have tried their best to equate with the coolness and beauty of the big lizards but nothing has ever come close. Dinosaurs were here 65 million years ago and each generation of children still picks up the idea that dinosaurs were and are the only deity ever needed for the human race. No human has ever been able to say anything other than, "Dinosaurs were here 65 million years ago." No 64s and there probably won't be any to say that they were here 66 million years ago. They are just so cool and it is beyond comprehension why more movies and books and clothing and furniture aren't made in direct support of these majestic and enigmatic creatures from a time and world that will never be forgotten.

It is also astonishing how the dinosaur population became so adapted and omnipresent only to just stop being here. One minute they were all hanging out eating meat and plants and doing dino stuff and then they were gone.

There are plenty of theories and beliefs as to why these animals had to leave but none really explain why they had to quit on such a high note. The feeling of dread that many had when Jimmy Hendrix died after a measly three rocking years in the limelight is one iota of how most children feel about dinosaurs existence. "Why did they have to die so young?" the children might say. "Why does something so cool have to be so far away from me?" These are a few of the stirring questions many boys ranging from 8-12 inadvertently ask each day.

My period of obsession and "I will die for anything related to dinosaurs or linked to them" emotional status was a wonderful time but indeed short. I was fantastically excited about all the different colors and personalities of dinosaurs. Still some of the largest words in my vocabulary stem from my early "research" into the world of these herbivores and carnivores. Names like Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex brought a feeling of elation that could only be compared to an opera lover's first experience in the audience of Candide. To hear those syllables bounce so wonderfully off my tongue made me shudder with delight and hope that my dreams would be invaded by my scaly skinned friends' immense and mind-blowing presences.

I had dinosaurs wherever I was. There were lunch boxes, bed sheets, stuffed animals, t-shirts, pajamas, and an entire library filled with books detailed with those pictures of a full sized dinosaur standing next to the tiny silhouette of me, a minuscule and therefore unimportant human being. I would have been honored to have ridden atop the mighty cranium of an Andesaurus delgadoi. I was truly in love with all things dinosaurs and yet, just like the creatures themselves, I had no idea that they would soon be coming to an alarmingly quick and violent end in my life.

I began to see myself getting carried away with this fixation when I was able to throw out names like Micropachycephalosaurus as easily as one might use a monosyllabic "mom" or "cake." I started to become exhausted with the role that dinosaurs were playing in my life. I was only 9 and already my day consisted entirely around my "Dino Schedule." It was up to rise, take off stegosaurus pjs, out of dino bed, into the bathroom to brush with my triceratops toothbrush, off to school with the dino imprinted clothes where I would drift through class doodling little velociraptors when the teacher's eyes weren't fixed on me, and then back home to play with dinosaurs, read about them and do everything according to my large and cold blooded amigos.

I was becoming sick as one does at the end stages of an addiction. I didn't know how to get over this craving for my dinosaurs. At my age, serious treatment didn't cross my mind and I knew that the only true way to get ride of these creatures was to blitzkrieg them from my very soul myself. So the day came when I went to another place in my psyche and officially stated, "fuck dinosaurs." When my parents arrived home that afternoon they found my bedsheets and stuffed animals sliced to pieces and like their real life ancestors, they were obliterated from this planet. I was finally free of the creatures and had had to sacrifice my sanity (if only for a brief moment) in order to cure myself of them. I believe that to have been the only way.

When something becomes so completely awesome one must go cold turkey and just erase it from one's being.

Now that I have grown and recovered from that aching childhood illness I am mystified in the way that all the children of this new generation have acquired the same gene that will simply not permit them to not like dinosaurs. Luckily the gene appears to be on the Y chromosome as the girls do not seem to be nearly as affected by the allure of these green and brown beasts.

When I asked my four year old students how they felt today as I do everyday they replied as they do everyday: "I feel like a dinosaur, ROARRRRRR!!! Today was toy day and while the girls brought in the newer dolls and things that may not have existed during their parents generation, all the boys brought in things involving their best friends the Dino dudes. One boy with dino dolls, one with dino cards, one with a book of dinosaurs, and one boy who had forgotten his dinosaurs but was happy to show us the T-rex smiling on his t-shirt. They love the dinosaurs to an even more outrageous extent than I myself did.

When we take breaks in the class the students are permitted to draw pictures of anything they want. Every boy will always draw his favorite hunter from the cretaceous period. They will compare drawings with each other and will even have pretend fights using only the flaccid pieces of paper with which I have so kindly procured for them. The boys are dinosaur fiends and find a slight moment of solace each day with a brief and less interesting conversation about beetles only to jump right back to the subject of which dinosaur ate more meat and which one had the longer tongue for more effective roaring.

It is all quite captivating and yet I remember my crash and burn when dinosaurs became extinct for me and I fear that this moment will be even more severe for these children. I am beginning to lose my trust in these creatures because they only seem to be around for a small experience and then they break your heart by splitting all together without even offering to pay for half the check. We shall see what happens with these ignorant boys but I hope that as an ex dinojunkie myself I will be able to guide these young lads to a safe and speedy recovery when the day comes that they too must eradicate dinosaurs from their very souls.