ustxtxb_obs_1982_01_15_50_00020-00000_000.pdf

. ‘kb and Associates E 502 W. 15th Street Austin, Texas 78701 C35 REALTOR Representing all types of properties in Austin and Central Texas Interesting & unusual property a specialty. 477-3651 Chuck Caldwell’s 800-424-2463 Call Toll Free II 1731 New Hampshire Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 From $29 up. Best buy in D.C. _ II ‘1’ Life Insurance and Annuities Martin Elfant, CLU 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 Printers Stationers Mailers Typesetters Trade High Speed Web Offset Publication Press Counseling Designing Copy Writing Editing and Computer Sales Services Complete Computer Data Processing Services PRINT/ p,\\ ;…,.. A/G *FU TURA 7 TRADES t a l at i COUNCIL 0 PRESS AUSTIN TEXAS ILIPTIL11111111 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress P.O. Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 bite for small operators; they were betting more than their shirts the state would step in and take over from them. Again, goaded by McCarty and cajoled by Preston Smith, Governor of Texas at the time, Atlantic-Richfield donated to the state the two choicest of the fiberglass dinosaurs that were made for Sinclair for the New York Fair in 1964’65 They stand there now, Dinosaur Valley Park’s prime visible attraction, protected from the public by a chain-link fence adequately strong, but inadequately low, the great bloated brontosaur frozen there, overseeing with lacklustre eyes the parched remains of the shallow shoreline where his greatgreat-grandparents roamed. Short yards away, the finest tyrannosaur ever sired and damned by union of art and science glares at him hungrily. “Hungrily” because most of his chinaware clippers are missing. For one whole year this greatest of all models of the greatest of all meat-eaters faced his public and his fiberglass prey largely bare-mouthed. You take 18 saber-fangs out of the mouth of any reptile and what have you got? A silly-looking sight. Vandals can find few targets so in-aclass-by-themselves as those teeth. Beer cans are found occasionally mixed with rubble in that cavernous mouth, and science is certain he never touched the stuff. A higher fence would do the trick. The Austin home office of Texas Parks and Wildlife received news of this matter. They were quick to recognize the gravity of the “sitcom.” Gravely they decided to select a qualified artist to go to Glen Rose and do denture work worthy of the patient. A year later, while the matter was still under advisement and awaiting insertion in the budget, local park employees got apparent permission at the local level to remedy the ludicrous situation as best they could, and since then the King of Tyrants has been kept randomly supplied with concrete dental repairs. Texas Parks and Wildlife is perhaps as good a park control agency as they come. Its sin is scientific unawareness, the lack of a scientist who can warn them authoritatively, “Dinosaurs aren’t making tracks anymore. When these ,are gone, that’s all there’s going to be.” The bureau’s thesis is, a test boring has proven they have tho.usands and thousands of tracks still “in the bank.” A 30-foot shaft for a nuke tower at Comanche Peak over five miles away uncovered 18 footprints. These, however, were of a lone carnivore, out “scouting.” There can be no honest estimate of how many sauropod tracks lie still concealed. But this we can determine accurately: every one the Paluxy takes away is one less in the world. And they cannot underlie the whole ,park; they can occur only where the fitful Gulf of Mexico paused in adVance . or retreat, where the great meat-furnishers were bedevilled between the safety of a shallow sea and the green ‘goods and raw dangers that ranged a shallow shore. Because of the soft nature of the matrix and the even softer underlying layer, there is no science “dig” in all the world that can be dealt with more easily or cheaply, Huge blocks of, choice trackway could be uncovered, cut with rocksaws, transported to high ground safe from the Paluxy and enhancing the area of the life-size tyrannosaur and brontosaur. What would this do for Tex as? Sorry as the situation is, the worldwide drawing power of, this neglected and bedraggled park is fantastic. Won’t some of you Texans tell your park people what it’s all about, what they have, what to do about it, for the sake of unborn ages of Man, His crowning handiwork, who will long thrill to the story of this mightiest line of mighty beasts? V. Theodore Schreiber is a retired science teacher, a free-lance writer, and small fanner in PennSylvania. He has been associated with Dinosaur Valley State Park since before it was a park. 20 JANUARY 15, 1982