Nerd - Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art - page 23

few months later my first publication, a nine-sentence report on the vestigial defensive
display of T.spelaeus, appeared in the Bulletin ofthePhiladelphia HerpetologicalSoci-
ety. 4
Small-town teenagers who publish in scientific journals aren't likely to excel in social
skills. I was a lowly high school freshman when we moved to Missouri, with unstylish
short hair and no athletic talents, so I hoped to break the ice by showing my classmates
some animal behavior. Having gained our science teacher's bewildered permission, I
brought a gartersnake and a leopard frog to school, then passed several hours imagin-
ing myself on the cusp of popularity. Early in the afternoon's first period I placed the
two in a terrarium on Mr. Smith's desk; immediately, the brightly striped serpent began
swallowing its struggling prey by a hind leg. The doomed amphibian let loose a series
of blood-curdling screams that were finally silenced by ingestion, and as snake jaws
opened and closed over the frog's snout a girl near the front of the class launched us in-
to bedlam. She wailed and flailed her arms, vomited on several other students, and after
a couple of minutes fled the room, her cries echoing down the hallway. Then, while the
other students settled down, I brooded on the likelihood of never making any friends.
As a sophomore I grew taller, and Daddy bought a razor for my nascent moustache.
However socially marginal, I suffered a crush on a shy farm girl in citizenship class.
Claudia's desk was in front of mine and I was overwhelmed by the briefest of smiles or
the passing fragrance of her hair; I strained for a glimpse of panty line, wondered what
it might be like to kiss her lips, and was generally clueless about my fifteen-year-old
body. Then one day we gave group reports, lined up by seating order such that I was
the last presenter from my row. When Mr. West called out, “Claudia, you're next . . . ,”
she glanced up, blinked a couple of times, and crumpled to the floor. As the other kids
gasped and fidgeted, I remembered Boy Scout training and took command. Grabbing
the girl of my daydreams by the ankles, I lifted Claudia's feet to waist level and was
stunned when Mr. West shouted, “Stop looking up her dress!” Naturally that prospect
would have sent my teenage head spinning, but all that had come to mind was one line
in a first aid pamphlet: “For fainting, elevate the legs.”
Mostly I reveled in natural history. That next summer I audited a C.M.S.C. class
in which we trapped and prepared rodents as museum specimens; sixteenth birthday
presents included an album of frog calls and a special India-ink pen for field notes.
I joined the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and corresponded
with Field Guide author Roger Conant, who introduced me to Kansas City naturalist
Paul Anderson; 5 following their suggestions, I began writing to other biologists and
amassing reprints of their scientific papers. A slender glass lizard, dead on a trail in
nearby Knobnoster State Park, was cataloged as “HWG 1” for my newly inaugurated
collection of preserved specimens. Next-door neighbors Stanley and Mildred Fisher and
their kids shared these interests. One weekend we exhibited live and preserved herps in
our garage, charging admission, and were featured in the local newspaper. Coal skinks
and red-bellied snakes hadn't previously been reported from north of the Ozarks, so
Mike Wakeman and I published in Herpetologica on those we caught, 6 and with anoth-
er classmate, aspiring physician Mike Wyatt, I dissected road-killed cats and stillborn
lambs from his dad's farm.