Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
herps. We'd read in Klauber's
Rattlesnakes
that little was known about massasaugas,
10
so, having commonly found them crossing roads through the prairie west of town, Ge-
orge and I capitalized on the museum's specimens to augment our field observations.
On weekends we examined preserved snakes, using the collection data to assess sea-
sonal activity and stomach contents to study natural diet. I could recognize all the local
frogs, lizards, and snakes from just a foot or a piece of tail, while George identified a
shrew and several species of mice, sometimes based on only fur and a few teeth. Our
goal, right from the start, was to publish a scientific paper.
11
Southwestern University enticed me with a scholarship, high academic standards, and
a friendly atmosphere. Georgetown was thirty miles north of Austin, straddling the east-
ern edge of the Hill Country (formally known as the Edwards Plateau) and thus home to
River, its physical presence dominated by historic flagstone buildings and church spires;
land to the west was devoted to ranching, while to the east family farms covered what
was once prairie. Though geographically well positioned for my biological interests, I
was also starved for social acceptance and emotionally unprepared for independent liv-
ing. Freshmen quickly discovered that fraternities and sororities dominated campus life,
and of the eight hundred students those few who didn't join were ostracized as “G.D.I.s”
(goddamned independents). Within weeks I was sitting on the edge of my dorm bed
wondering about pledging a fraternity when a senior ran through the hall shouting that
President Kennedy had been assassinated.
A high school neighbor from Fort Worth also enrolled at S.U., and we often went to
movies and concerts together. Marsha was self-reliant, bright, and intensely vivacious.
Many years later her mother told me of her daughter sitting curbside and copying the
license plates of passing cars so she could practice addition and subtraction—“with
real
numbers, Mom!”—and a mutual friend back home named “grace,” “integrity,” and other
such qualities as she recalled idolizing the older girl. When we met, Marsha was a petite
seventeen-year-old with green eyes and short brown hair, and I was enthralled by her
adventuresome spirit and girl-next-door charms. I was also naive in matters of the heart,
and that fall first learned how taste could merge with smell, vision with touch, as our
physical attraction grew into emotional involvement. Sometimes my head threatened to
explode from her kisses and her shy caress.
I cannot recall now why we drifted apart—only that sororities inexplicably passed
over Marsha, and at the end of spring semester, hurt by prospects of pariah status on
our little campus, she transferred to a larger, faraway university. Although we saw each
other the next couple of summers and once shared an idyllic lakeshore weekend with
her family, neither of us ever said “I love you.” Maybe we were reserving those words
for that special person with whom we'd supposedly spend a lifetime, and in hindsight
perhaps one or both of us lacked commitment. Over the years we occasionally got to-
gether back in Fort Worth, but because we never endured the conflicts and adjustments
that arise between seasoned lovers, my memories of her are too perfect and sadly shal-
low. By the time we graduated I was dating the woman who would become my first wife,
while Marsha had married an oddly quiet guy named Lyndy.
