A Poem: Seasons

By Craig: Here is a little poem that I wrote a number of years ago. In fact, 23 years to be exact. I found it in a little book of poems all written in pencil. It is called Seasons.

                                                          Seasons

Summers end brings Autumns colours
Autumn gives in to Winters chilly demand
The seasons final conclusion draws near
And is put to rest at last,
By the coming of a new year.
The evergreens seem full of glory
While the hardwoods wither from an uncertainty
A struggle among the elements
Draws nature to the point of tears
Spring beckons for Winter to end
And finally whispers in her ear
It's time to wake up and enjoy the fruits again!
That is, until your time next year
Now move aside and clear the way
For Spring is coming near!
O seeds...O seeds... where are you?
Root yourselves in the garden hither!
And reach out with your branches toward the morning sky
For it is your time now
To prove your worth
For your time is short
And the essence of your substance even shorter
Time is the nemesis of this seasons memory
But there is next year! And the year after!
Until the sun enervates and fades
At a distant time beyond human ken.

Elements of Time: The Sea Monkeys

By Craig: As you age, the way that you perceive things change. When you are a small child it is hard to differentiate between fiction and reality, or what is real and what is not real. The ability to do so comes with experience and age. Even as adults there is still a lingering uncertainty between the physiological world and the ontological one. In other words, I see a tree...How do I know how that tree will react in my presence? How do I know that it will not reach out and grab me with its long branches and crush me like an anaconda crushing a goat. I know because I have lived among trees for the past 45 years. Not so for a small child who becomes lost in the forest, or for that matter an adult native of the Sahara desert who has never seen a tree. Who knows what that tree might be capable of!

So it was with me during the summer of 1975...Or was it 1976? I forget. Whatever year it might have been it doesn't really matter. I was around 7 or 8 years old when I opened up a comic book and saw the full page ad for Sea Monkey's.

Here it was staring me in the face. "Enter the Wonderful World Of Amazing Live SEA-MONKEYS"  The ad showed the typical 1970s nuclear family smiling at a fishbowl in which lurked these creepy human-like things that swam around for your entertainment. "So Eager To Please-They Can Even Be TRAINED!!" This line was even creepier. So... they are so eager to please....but...but...what if you pissed them off? Although my 7 year old mind didn't actually use this language it must have formulated something similar along those lines.

The add continued: "World famous sea monkeys are So full of surprises you can't stop watching them. They swim, play, scoot, race and do comical tricks and stunts. So easy to grow even an 8-year old child can do so without help."

For a dollar and a quarter plus shipping and handling of course, I could be the proud owner of my own little kingdom. Why it even came equipped with a castle! But something bothered me about the whole deal. I couldn't quite put my finger on it...something was not right. I kept staring at the ad. I went to bed that night thinking about the sea-monkey's. What if I did send away for them? What if they did grow into those sinister looking naked things with the long tails. And then there were those smiles...They seemed fake. Then to my horror I imagined them escaping from the tank at night. I would be sleeping and I would suddenly awaken to hear something scurrying across the floor. Then a pitter patter of feet running across my bed sheets! I would pull the covers over my head but by this time it would be too late. They would be under the blankets as I grabbed my flashlight and my GOD the smiles...those macabre disingenuous smiles were replaced by soulless evil faces with razor sharp teeth! I never ordered the Sea-Monkey's.

The Lookdown Fish

By Craig: They swim in circles around the cylindrical tank. They remind me of race cars driving around an oval track, yet there is a difference. Here, in their environment there is no finish line. They merely swim, swim and swim. They are predictable, instinctive creatures, flat silvery and some of them almost opaque. Their soulless eyes jut out from a concave face over a mouth that is shaped in a perpetual frown. They are the "Lookdown" a fish common to the Atlantic ocean and prized at aquariums all over the world for their distinctive, unique appearance. The Lookdown was first catalogued by the famed Swedish Naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the mid 18th century.

    I first became acquainted with the Lookdown at the RiverBanks Zoo in Columbia South Carolina a number of years ago. A specimen here had lost one of its eyes. I could not help but notice how it had adapted to life without it. Not that there was anything that it could do about it. With one eye it swam just as straight, and just as powerful and graceful as its mates who had two. In fact, it did not seem the least bit concerned or inconvenienced by its loss. I wondered how it came to be...How did it lose its eye? Was it an accident of some kind? Did it accidentally scrape up against a coral reef? Did it have an encounter with some sort of aggressive fish that managed to the unfortunate Lookdown's eye before moving on to something else that attracted its attention? Did it have some sort of disease that caused the eye to become detached? Or was it simply born without it? Perhaps I am the only sick bastard interested in knowing this? Even the maimed creature itself was not in the least bit curious as to where it went, and was, in fact, unaware that there was even a problem.

     Here I stood, now, a few years later at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. My son standing next to me getting impatient as I gazed at the existential movements of the Lookdown fish that continually swam in circles around the tank. Man-like faces with their open melancholic mouths that turned down as if they possessed the ability to reason. I could not help but fancy that there were human spirits trapped inside these limited bodies, perhaps being punished for egregious offenses committed while living on Earth in human form. As I watched the movement of these fascinating creatures I suddenly became aware that one of them had stopped and turned towards me. Its sad, perpetual frown no longer in profile.
"Hello" It said. "Why do you insist on gawking at us? How would you like it if you were confined in a tank and forced to swim in circles for no other reason, apparently than to entertain greasy cheeseburger eating Americans like you!"

I was stunned. "I don't eat cheeseburgers!" I exclaimed, and then added with a haughty arrogance. "In fact, I run marathons!"

"Well whoopee for you, you obnoxious soon to be non entity!" It responded.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Well, will it really matter that you ran a marathon a million years from now when your name and everything associated with you will have been eradicated from memory and consciousness?"

I thought about this logic, and, well, he had a point.

"Still" I said. "I am like every other creature on this planet, I live according to the dictates of my nature, and my nature is to survive, avoid pain, be happy and, well...I guess stave off death for as long as possible."

"Now you are getting somewhere!" The Lookdown said cheerfully, once again moving to a position in the tank where I observed it in classic profile.

"Do you know who I am?" The Lookdown asked thoughtfully.

I was puzzled by this question. "You are a Lookdown fish." I said confidently.

"Yea...Yea, but that's not what I have always been."

I was intrigued. "Well then, who are you?"

"I, my good sir am none other than, Rene Robert Chevalier Poo Poo Du Gascon !  The former Abbe of St. Louis the Pius in Paris France. I lost my head on the guillotine on the 9th of Thermidor 1793. I was treacherously betrayed by a young lady, Madame Renault, who accused me of taking advantage of her naïve disposition."

"What did you?" I asked with genuine interest.

"Well, uh...I sort of seduced her in the confessional box."

"I see." I said. "So how is it that you have come to be a Lookdown fish?"

"That, my good sir is the million dollar question! But I have not always been brought back as a Lookdown fish. Embarrassingly enough, in one of my lives I came back as a blowfly. This was so humiliating that I immediately sought out a restaurant where I could make a pest of myself. I found a willing waiter who obliged my suicide request via a fly swatter. Thus ended that mortifying experience!"

I nodded. "so how did you end up becoming a Lookdown fish?"

"I do not know! But I do know that I am not the only Lookdown that was human at one time. Do you see that rather bloated looking chap with the guilty expression?"

Gascon directed his melancholic mouth toward a rather large Lookdown who I could have sworn stole a glance in my direction as it passed by.

"That, my friend is none other than Pope Clement VI! You know...The Pope who sat between the two fires to ward off the black death! A lot of good it did him! Ah Ha! Do you see that rather small impish looking rascal near the top of the tank?"

"I see! I see! And who might that be?" I asked.

"That, is Her Royal Highness Marie Antoinette!"

I laughed. "Well I guess she no longer has to worry about letting the people eat cake! Say, are all these Lookdowns French or what?

Gascon snickered. "Absolutely not! In fact, There are more Americans in this tank than any other! Why look who is passing as I speak...It is John D. Rockefeller and Henry Pullman, a couple of capitalist knaves!

Just then my son pulled at my arm.

"Dad, this is boring! Let's go see the Great White Sharks!"

Distracted I turned back to the tank but the great Rene Robert Chevalier  Poo Poo Du Gascon had disappeared. I watched the Lookdown fish swim by and wondered if I had just dreamed everything. As we walked away I stole one last glance at the Lookdown tank. The fish swimming as nature dictated, and swimming and swimming until one day they would swim no more.

 

Fireballs: A History of Meteors and Other Atmospheric Phenomena

By Craig: Here is the link where you can purchase my book from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/FIREBALLS-History-Meteors-Atmospheric-Phenomena/dp/1441573569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391825465&sr=8-1&keywords=fireballs+hipkins

You can also get it at any of the major book retailers like Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million. The book is available in hardback, paperback or digital format like kindle.

Chapter 1: The Great Unknown
Chapter 2: Early Myths
Chapter 3: Ancient Fireball Sightings
Chapter 4: Fireballs In The Age Of Chivalry
Chapter 5: Fireballs In The Age Of Reason
Chapter 6: Fireballs In The Modern Era
Chapter 7: The Tunguska Fireball
Chapter 8: Siberia Again...The Sikhote Alin Fireball
Chapter 9: Green Fireballs Over New Mexico
Chapter 10: Slow Moving Fireballs...The Comet
Chapter 11: The Lightning Fireball (Ball Lightning)
Chapter 12: The Will-O-The Wisp
Chapter 13: The Fire Of St. Elmo
Chapter 14: The Fireball Of The Magi
Chapter 15: The Dragon Fireball
Atmospheric Phenomena Chronology From Pre-Recorded History Until The Year 1807.

An Interview with John Wilkes Booth

By Craig: It has been nearly a century and a half since the disgruntled stage actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Booth and catch up on where he has been and what he has been doing since that terrible night long ago. Here is the interview in its entirety which I conducted on my back porch last Friday evening.

Craig: So here we are some 150 years after the shot that rocked a nation to its foundation. Tell me, Mr. Booth do you regret anything about what occurred on the night of April 14th 1865?

Booth: Firstly, let me commend you on this coffee that you have served up. I must say sir that it is exquisite! Reminds me of my sister Asia's concoction that I use to thoroughly enjoy.

Craig: Well thank you Mr. Booth, but I really cannot take the credit for the taste. That, sir, belongs to the Maxwell House coffee brand supplied by Kraft Food Groups, along with my Keurig one-cup coffee brewer.

Booth: A Keurig what?

Craig: (Laughing) Never mind Mr. Booth, a product of the 21st century, something well after your time.

Booth: (Twirling his moustache) I detect a bit of Yankee sarcasm in your voice sir. But I shall let it pass this time.

Craig: I did not mean to be offensive sir and I apologize if I have offended you, but let's get back to the question. Any regrets?

Booth: Indeed. If you had to spend the last century and a half on the run you would have regrets also.

Craig: I see, but you do not have any regrets about pulling the trigger and killing Mr. Lincoln?

Booth: I did it for my country and for no other reason. The only regret that I have is the pain and the shame that I have inflicted on my dear mother!

Craig: Did you not think of this before you entered Mr. Lincoln's box that night?

Booth: (Thinking) It was a rash, mad act brought on by desperation and a powerful desire to make a difference for a cause that I cherished wholeheartedly.

Craig: I see. So you never thought about the anguish that you might cause your aging mother and family? You acted on a pure selfish desire to gain instant fame and eternal glory is that correct?

Booth: Selfish? Hardly Sir! And I resent the implication! I told you that I killed Lincoln for my country which was and still is the South! (Booth raises his fist in the air and makes a sweeping downward motion with his arm as if he were cutting the air with a dagger)

Craig: (Changing the subject) You have spilled some of your coffee Mr. Booth. Would you like another cup?

Booth: (suddenly realizing that his outburst of emotion has soiled his dark colored suit) Oh...yes...I could use another cup, and could you add a little brandy to it?

Craig: Of course Mr. Booth. Let's make it an Irish coffee shall we?

Booth: Yes...Yes...That will be fine.

I returned a few minutes later with Mr. Booth's request and found him sitting cross legged with his index finger on his cheek as if he were in a photographers studio posing for a shot. He looked pensive but his expression brightened when I handed him his beverage. He took a sip, closed his eyes, and thrust his head back in dramatic fashion.

Booth: Exquisite!

Craig: Okay, let's start again. If you could turn back the clock and find yourself in Ford's theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865 would you still assassinate President Lincoln?

Booth: (reflecting thoughtfully) Well, since you have asked the question in a straightforward way I will answer it bluntly. Yes! He was the cause of all our miseries! The cause of our misfortune and the tyrant deserved to enter eternal damnation in the manner that he did! I have no regrets other than what I have already revealed to you.

Craig: I appreciate your straightforward answer Mr. Booth. Let me ask you something else.

Booth: Yes. Please do! It has been many years since I was the subject of an interview.

Craig: Great. So what have you been doing all these years...I mean, it has been a long time since Boston Corbett gunned you down at Garrett's farm.

Booth: (Contemplating the question) What do you think that I have been doing? I've been hanging out with Davy. We have traveled through damn near every wooded region in the south looking for succor and a place to rest. We have camped out in fields, swamps, on the sides of mountains, in caves, old abandoned houses, and any other place where we can lay our weary heads! It is very tiring, and I cannot understand why we are destined to  roam about like this for eternity! Also, I am sick and tired of hearing Davy complain about his broken neck!

Craig: (laughing) I understand. I'll bet it is somewhat frustrating.

Booth: (A stern look crosses his face) You laugh! You mock me Sir!

Craig: No, No! You have interpreted me wrong Mr. Booth. I am merely laughing at your description of Davy's neck.

Booth: (Appeased) Oh...I see, well ok then, I shall let it pass this time!

Craig: Another question for you.

Booth: Certainly!

Craig: How does it feel to go down in history with the likes of Brutus and Lee Harvey Oswald?

Booth: Ah yes! Brutus! But I am more famous than he! (wagging his finger at me) But Oswald? No, he was just a patsy. No sir! Do not compare me with the likes of them! I am like King Richard at Bosworth field! Or perhaps Hamlet avenging the death of my father!

(Booth stands up and downs the remainder of his drink before striking his best pose as Hamlet and pretending to dual with a sword)

Booth: Ah! Claudius I have you now!

Craig: Okay Mr. Booth. Your point is well taken!

Booth: (sitting back down in his chair and regaining his composure) Sorry. Please continue with the interview.

Craig: Gladly. What do you think about the state of your country today? When I say "your country" I am referring to the southern United States which you told me earlier is still your country.

Booth: I am appalled, sir, by the direction that this country has drifted in the last fifteen decades. Not just in the South, but in the North as well! Back in the day it was I John Wilkes Booth who was the idol of the times! A dignified, patriotic and stalwart youth who personified all that manhood was meant to be! Now who are the idols of their day? These miserable miscreants! Who is this arrogant, impudent, impostor of manhood that drives around in one of those horseless carriages, and goes by the preposterous name of Justin Biebo or some other such nonsense!

Craig: (Laughing) I'll have to admit Mr. Booth that although you really didn't answer my question you hit a home run there! On to the next question.

Booth: Yes. of course!

Craig: Lets us get back to the 19th century. Were you disappointed when the leaders of the Confederate government did not embrace you after shooting Mr. Lincoln?

Booth: I am not so sure that they did not embrace me! By God there was a lot going on in those final days!

Craig: Well, some of the top cabinet members including Jefferson Davis believed that the shooting of Lincoln actually hurt the Southern cause. Do you believe this?

Booth: (Standing and raising his fist in the air) Sic Semper Tyrannis!

Craig: Okay, well, I guess you answered that question.

Booth: (Sitting down)  Indeed Sir! Indeed!

Craig: By the way, where is Davy?

Booth: (Looking puzzled) Why where do you think he is? He is out in the woods! By God he has been out there with me since he got his neck stretched!

Craig: (Standing up, and gazing into the woods where he spots a man wearing a coat and light colored pants. His neck is cocked at an awkward angle. He waves.) Hello Mr. Herold!

Davy: Uh...Hi!

Booth: A simple minded youth he is!

Craig: A youth? He is almost 170 years old?

Booth: Not in our world sir!

Craig: One last question Mr. Booth.

Booth: Shoot!

Craig: Did you ever believe in your wildest imagination that people would still be talking about you 150 years after your death?

Booth: (A sinister chuckle) Death? Ah ha! Dead in the flesh! But never in the minds of men!

Craig: Or women Mr. Booth, this is the 21st century!

Booth: Of course I knew that people would still be talking about me I am John Wilkes Booth!! (With this, Booth rises and stumbles down the porch steps holding the back of his head) Damn that Corbett was a good shot! Curse him!

Craig: So long Mr. Booth!

Booth: (Turning around to acknowledge me) By the way, if Conger or Stanton comes looking for me my name is not Booth!

Craig: (Confused)Well, than who shall I say dropped by?

Booth: (Cupping his hand to his mouth and whispering) Boyd! Tell them Boyd stopped by for a chat. (cocking an eyebrow) Wait, no! The name is St. Helen! Yes, that is it... tell them St. Helen is in town. (He laughs and waves his hat at me) So long Yankee!

Booth skips into the forest and gathers up Davy who is bombarding him with questions which because of the distance I cannot understand. The last I see of them is a spectral glance of Davy's coat as he darts around a large maple tree.

Breathing Tax: America's Next Monster to be Unleashed

By Craig: So I have been quite neglectful in updating this Blog. I noticed that it has been over a month since I have posted so I figure that It would be a good time to write about a topic that has been swirling along in my mind for quite some time. A number of years ago I wrote a short story called Breathing Tax. Basically it was about a guy who lived in a futuristic society that managed to control the amount of Nitrogen/Oxygen that was in the air. A certain company with the help of the government was able to tax the citizenry on the amount of air that they consumed. The homes that people lived in were equipped with a system that delivered the correct Nitrogen/Oxygen ratio through a ventilation system. Going outside required a mask unless one was fortunate to live in one of the huge resorts that were set up to accommodate the wealthy inhabitants. The average citizen went to work in a warehouse type facility that created the tools and products that kept themselves in servitude to the oligarchs that ran the world.

The story that I wrote back in 1991 has never made it to the computer or back then a word processor. It is scratched in longhand on lined yellow paper where it has been neglected in a box or drawer for the past quarter of a century. Recently I have decided to update this story in the hopes of perhaps getting it published. Who knows! Maybe somebody reading this blog is a publisher interested in the idea. Anyway, after careful reflection I cannot help but ponder on the changes that our society has undergone in the last 25 years. The internet has made it possible for people to find out just about anything they want on their neighbors. There is little privacy in this techno-world where everything is recorded and identities become linked to keypads and hard drives. The post 9-11 world has been a witness to countless excuses to insidiously and furtively whisk away peoples liberties and freedoms. It is a slow process that people hardly notice but when it is all said and done they become nothing more than automated cogs subservient to the capitalist-oligarch machine that has created laws that make it virtually impossible for anyone to start up a personal business without a huge amount of capital to get started. Young people are forced into going into debt after taking out gargantuan sized high interest student loans and entering a job market that (pardon my French) sucks! Often times these loans are never paid off. Our government (The United States) is a travesty that thrives on taxing the citizen to death. It is how they keep middle America under control. Private agencies like the IRS and the Federal Reserve which are run by greedy corporate scumbags are given a carte blanche when it comes to controlling the unwary masses who are blinded by their own partisan politics which are nothing more than fronts created by the oligarch run media outlets. If one is to survive being caught in the web of this Hegelian dialectic one must be careful to sift through the nonsense for truth!

And then there is the Tax...the breathing tax...when will it come to pass? Perhaps even now there is some unscrupulous American dirt bag with a light bulb going off in his head and a malicious grin that is getting ready...

Dinosaur World: Iguanodon

By Craig: A couple of weeks ago my soon to be 10 year old son and I drove from Tampa Florida in a blinding rain to Plant City. It was only about a 25 mile drive and considering that I drove nearly 600 the day before it seemed like a hop, skip and a jump. My son was excited as I had not seen him in over a month. We had been to Dinosaur World before. In fact, we celebrated my sons 5th birthday there back in 08. As if the Gods knew we had arrived, the rain suddenly stopped and we made our way into the newly constructed visitor center. There, we found, much to my sons interest fossils of every kind. There were trilobites that were hundreds of millions of years old along with other plant and sea life from those ancient times. Although there was plenty to see at the visitors center and gift shop, we bought our tickets and walked out into the overcast morning to be greeted by a bunch of towering Sauropods. We made our way along one of the many paths that looped around the park and were greeted by numerous other Mesozoic beasts. On one of the paths I was intrigued to see what seemed to be a herd of grazing dinosaurs. I was, however, confused by the name on the plate in front of the display "Iguanodon." This brought me back to my childhood where I can remember one of my favorite dinosaur models from the Marx play set that I shared with my brother. These grazing Iguanodon's appeared totally different than the Iguanodon of that time period. I was well familiar with the story of Iguanodon.

Iguanodon by Zdenek Burian (mid 20th century)

 

Hawkins Crystal Palace Iguanodon (1854)

 

    In the early 1820s an English doctor named Gideon Mantell found some interesting fossil teeth which he later compared to the much smaller teeth of an iguana. He quickly noticed the similarities and so the creature was named Iguanodon meaning "iguana tooth." Other fossils were found until Mantell could make a rough sketch of what he believed the creature to look like. Mantell's Iguanodon was a quadruped with a length of about 60 feet. It was a herbivore that lived in antediluvian times which learned men of the day believed occurred before the flood of Noah.

                                             Mantell's early 1830s sketch of Iguanodon

    In 1841 Richard Owen first coined the name "Dinosaur" meaning "terrible lizard." Iguanodon was one of the first three species classified in Owens Dinosauria. Owens, however, took issue with the size of Mantell's Iguanodon and cut the length of the beast in half to a more modest number of 30 feet. Owen became the most respected authority of dinosaurs in Europe by the mid 19th century. In 1853 an artist named Benjamin W. Hawkins was approached to see if he could create life size models of the Iguanodon and Megalosaurus for the Crystal Palace building which was going to reopen in London in 1854. Hawkins' Iguanodon was based on Owen and Mantell's interpretation of what the creature looked like. Today it is a ludicrous looking creature, a squat quadruped with a horn above its nose looking more like an overgrown Rhinoceros than anything else. To bring in the new year of 1854 a dinner was held inside of the Iguanodon model with Richard Owen seated at the head of the table.

Richard Owens proposes a toast inside the Iguanodon model

    In the years that followed the Crystal Palace exhibition Iguanodon went through a series of changes. In 1878 a coal mine in Bernissart Belgium yielded one of the greatest dinosaur finds of the 19th century. Dozens of Iguanodon skeletons were found, some of them almost complete.  Louis Dollo, a young curator of the Natural history Museum in Brussels took charge of cataloging the find. He found that not only was Iguanodon not prone and lizard like, but possessed a more bird-like structure with large hind legs and shorter front ones. Dollo also correctly asserted that the horn-like bone which Owen and Mantell had placed above Iguanodon's nose was in reality a massive thumb claw that probably would have given Iguanodon a highly effective weapon of defense against predators. Dollo's bipedal, giraffe like Iguanodon that grazed on the high branches of trees stood as the model for nearly a century before it was found that he had erred slightly with the position of its tail. A modern model of Iguanodon shows that it probably grazed on all fours and ran on its longer and much stronger hind legs. It's head looking almost nothing like a modern iguana!

      As I stood there with my son staring at the new Iguanodon models on display I could almost imagine the two of us traveling back to the Cretaceous. However, the Iguanodon that greets us as we exit our time machine is not the one modeled on the modern interpretation. In fact, it is indeed the Iguanodon of my play set. It is Dollo's beast! It greets us with a nod of his head and laughs at us as it masticates a large fern.

"I am here to say goodbye to you Craig." It says after swallowing its fare.

"What do you mean?" I respond.

"Well, I am a mere interpretation of somebody else's fancy you see. The creature that you behold ceases to exist after today. From now on you will only know me in my modern form."

I was thunderstruck by what I was hearing. It couldn't be...When I think of Iguanodon I think of my Marx's white toy Iguanodon that I got from Santa Clause for Christmas when I was five! Dollo's beast!

"You mustn't say that!" I screamed. I looked at my son who could not understand what all the commotion was about.

"You must accept reality my friend. I am an antiquated reject only fit to be discarded to the backroom of a dusty library shelf. Goodbye my friend. You were my last believer!"

Suddenly without another word the massive beast solidifies into a plastic model. I edge closer and look on it's tail. It reads "Iguanodon" and then "Taiwan." My illusion is destroyed and I am suddenly transported back to my own time. Our visit to the Cretaceous being of a very short duration.

                                 Modern interpretation of the Iguanodon (Dinosaur World)

                                                              Marx's toy Iguanodon
Yes indeed, Iguanodon has perhaps been the one dinosaur that has undergone the most changes since Mantell first identified it nearly two centuries ago. There are, to be sure, similar tales when attempts were made to piece together whole bodies from fragmentary fossil evidence. The late 19th century paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope most famously is known for placing the head of the aquatic Elasmosaurus on the wrong end of its body. When the mistake was first brought to his attention by his rival Othniel Charles Marsh he vehemently fought the accusations! Even today pieces are still being put together so that we can get a more accurate and better understanding of our planets ancient past.