The Island Chronicles Part 2: Something You Don’t See Everyday

Day 5:

 Mr. L has spent the last six months or so in FD’s doghouse, which is no place for a field tech to be. L is a good and smart young man, but he is tentative and deliberate, and FD is a man of action.  The kid is starting to bridle under the constant criticism, so I snag him and move to the west side of the parking lot where he can help me set up a small weatherport we use as a place to sell publications and distribute Archaeology Month posters and literature. He glares eastward at FD, several hundred yards away, and growls under his breath “I ought to kick his ass!”

I have had the great good fortune to work with and mentor young professionals and students most of my professional life. One of the most enjoyable aspects of that good fortune is continuous exposure to the guileless confidence of youth.  L is more than 30 years younger than FD, and is a big strapping lad, so why not just “kick his ass” and be done with it?  I smile at the kid from the bed of the truck I am now unloading and tell him, “Go ahead, but give me a minute to grab the video camera.”  I explain to L that he’d probably get a couple punches in, but in short order FD would tear off one of his arms and beat him to death with it.  I also tell him that I’ll speak to FD about lightening up on him if he’ll agree to just hustle a little more. It’s all good.

A lot has happened in the last few days. A 10 by 5 meter hole has been sawed in the parking lot, the gravel and sand placed at the end of last year’s project has been removed and the block excavation cleaned up and reopened.  Next to it, about five meters away, a deep back hoe trench has been excavated to the very bottom the Island, encountering there the cobbles left by the Ice Age Susquehanna. This trench, roughly triangular in shape, between three and four meters deep, and nicknamed the Tiger Trap, will have its north wall shaved perfectly plumb with hand tools and plumb bobs, providing a complete stratigraphic history of the Island’s formation.  A weatherport will be erected over the block excavation, a tarp shelter has been put over the Tiger Trap, and two more large weatherports are being erected, one for use as a lab and another for a classroom. Prior to their setup, all the weatherports were powerwashed and dried.  Uncountable numbers of round trips with many vehicles between the museum and the island have been made, and the job trailer is filling with tools, supplies and equipment of all kinds. All this work has been done by about a dozen or so young field technicians and volunteers, assisted by City Parks staff and State Museum staff, and the huge compound now appearing here is a testament to their hard work and ingenuity over the last several days.

Earlier this morning, I took a call from “The Savage”.  The Savage is many things. He is a Native American (part Shawnee) reenactor and educator who handles some of our educational programs from a campsite het sets up and occupies on the west edge of the Island. He is an accomplished flint knapper and is also expert in a number of other traditional technologies such as cordage plaiting, net and fabric weaving, beading and quill work, the making of ceramics, and sundry other skills. He is a brilliant and gifted teacher who can connect with kids as young as 5 and retirees as old as Methuselah, and with people from the lowest and highest socioeconomic groups and every ethnic and cultural background. He is the greatest purveyor of filthy jokes I have ever met. He can drink, swear and lie like a sailor on shore leave. He is capable of absolutely brilliant insights and spectacularly bad behavior, examples of each sometimes appearing within minutes of each other. He is a purveyor of trade beads and gunflints. He is a flim-flam man without peer. He is an expert in the identification of freshwater mollusks.  He is a hell of a lot of fun and a gigantic pain in the ass.

He is something else!

In the course of our phone chat, Mr. Savage informs me he’ll be arriving in a few days time from his home in Tennessee. He also mentions that his “Delaware Brother” name of Dave, who lives in Dillsburg, will be helping him out this year with the school groups, and with the construction of a dugout canoe.  We are of course very busy right now, and a bit behind schedule, and I must admit that this last little bit of information sort of goes in one ear and out the other.  

While standing in the bed of the pickup, I take a break from handing boxes down to L and stretch my back, taking a sip of Gatorade on this unusually hot September afternoon. As I gaze toward the job trailer a couple hundred yards east of me, I see a small compact car pull up near it.  Miss E walks over to the car and engages someone in brief conversation through the passenger side window. She quickly stands erect and points toward me, and the car heads my way.  This could be a newspaper reporter, someone from the Museum, a City employee, or any of a number of suppliers trying to arrange a delivery of something.  I don’t recognize the car. 

The car pulls up right behind the truck and the door opens. A 50ish Caucasian man steps out. He’s about 5’6”, 150 pounds or so, very tan, mostly skinny but with a bit of a beer paunch. He has a large and toothy smile.  He has close cropped hair, a small moustache, and thick glasses and is wearing a braided leather headband.  He has on a very nice pair of hand-made beaded moccasins. He has a remarkably abbreviated deerskin breechcloth on, secured with a thin rawhide thong.  He has a bone (chicken?) through his nose. He is otherwise completely undressed.

 “Hi! Are you Joe Baker?”

I am remembering something the Savage said about a “Delaware Brother” from Dillsburg.  I am having a hallucinatory out-of-body experience, floating in the air meters above myself and Mr L and this strange and almost naked man.  I watch detached and bemused, as I open my mouth in reply.

“No, I’m not.”

To be continued...