Kathy Brant

Pelican Lake is one of the loveliest of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes, and it is where I spent one of the most delightful days of my childhood.  My younger brother and I splashed through the water several docks down from where we were staying when we spied a school of tiny minnows.  I stood very still, hoping to entice them to encircle my legs while my brother charged ahead. 

It was then that I found it:  a gray rock with curious blue ridges on top.  When I turned it over, I saw four holes symmetrically spaced.  A fossil!  I screamed to my brother that I had found a dinosaur tooth.  (What other kind of fossil is there?) 

The rest of the day, adrenaline high, my brother and I searched for more teeth and bones, planning to build a dinosaur skeleton in our backyard, but we found nothing else.  My mother took me and the tooth to the Geology department at North Dakota State University  (It was called North Dakota Agricultural College then.), and a kind professor took the time to look at a nine-year-old girl’s treasure.  He identified it as a fossilized bison or cow tooth.  While disappointed it did not belong to a dinosaur, I loved that tooth and kept it hidden away in my room.  Sometimes I would turn it over in my hands and remember the thrill of discovery and the magic of summer at the lake. 

When I married and moved to Illinois, the tooth came with me.  I keep it on a shelf in my living room alongside some art glass and a Royal Doulton figurine.  Over the years it reminded me of the pure joy childhood can give and of home. 

Now when I look at the tooth, it reminds me that days spent with my brother were finite.  He left this world way too soon, and I so miss him.