This is Throwback Thursday #98. In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general. If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected]. Thanks!
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We've featured the poems of Charles Schweitzer a few times in the past. In Throwback Thursday #59, we looked at "The Rock Pile", while TBT #73 was "The Rockhounds Wish". All of these appear in his book of poems titled "Rhymes of the Rockhounds", which was published in the mid 1950's.
"The Rock I Threw Away" appeared in the December 1962 edition of the ESCONI newsletter. It's a good one. Who hasn't left a rock behind (maybe even a Mazon Creek concretion!), only to see the next person pick it up and keep it. Maybe you left it because it wasn't a good specimen or even a good potential specimen. It's hard not to feel regret about your decision, when someone else values the rock differently. This is the stuff of beginners luck. Where someone on their first field trip finds the best specimen, because everyone else is too selective about what to keep!
The Rock I Threw Away
He picked up the stone I had cast aside,
And I smiled with a tolerant smile;
There was nothing I saw in that piece of rock
For cutting, not really worth while.He was new at the game, and perhaps did not know
What rocks could be polished right well;
But I, an old timer, had hunted a lot,
And the values of rock I could tell.In spite of my kidding he treasured the stone,
And said that he thought it was good;
And I, patronizing, said sometime he would learn
Of agate and jasper and wood.He showed with considerable pride;
It was sometime later I saw his display,
The stones looked quite well,
but one far excelled
The others that lay by its side."And where, may I ask, did you get this fine rock?
'tis the best that you have in the tray."
"Oh, that," and he hardly concealed a sly smile,
"Was the stone that you once threw away."- Charles G. Schweitzer