I Am A Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were a diverse group of animals and the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period (about 230 million years ago) until the end of the Cretaceous (about 65 million years ago). Dinosaurs freely roamed every continent on earth and while generally known for the large size of some species, most were human-sized or even smaller. Most of the scientific community believed these ancestors of today’s lizards to be sluggish, complacent, relatively unintelligent, predominately carnivorous, cold blooded and methodical they actually had numerous adaptations for social interaction. Wait one darn second! Couldn’t those detailed adjectives easily be used when describing my buddies and me? I’m talking about guys I work with, play softball with, hang-out with at our kids sporting events and, dare I say, my bowling group? It used to be that a man with a receding hairline or some grey (salt and pepper) in his temples was seen as dashing or distinguished. Today, any guy over forty-five is considered a prehistoric dinosaur; impractically large, slow-moving, slow to adapt, obsolete and bound for extinction. Sadly, I’ll be forty-nine this year which makes me part of the dinosaur demographic.

Before he hosted the popular game show, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, Jeff Foxworthy (also a dinosaur) was a very successful stand -up comedian. His most popular bit was called, “You Might Be a Redneck.” For instance, “If you have more cars parked on your front lawn than people living in your house, you might be a redneck.” For the sake of this article, I would like to offer up a series of like minded ideas related to Dinosaurs.

• If you don’t maintain an active Facebook account, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you’ve never read a Tweet, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you routinely fall asleep during an episode of “Law and Order,” You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you think spelling your name with a symbol (Ke$ha, Cope!and) is $illy, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you think Bieber Fever is a new strain of the flu, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you thought Aubrey Huff’s “Rally Thong” had more to do with cross dressing than team morale, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you’re optimistic Martin Sheen will eventually talk some sense into his son Charlie, You Might be a Dinosaur
• If the last adult website you visited was to read up on Obamacare, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If your idea of exercise is bowling or golf, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you think Angry Birds is a reference to the nesting doves on your front porch, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you have to ask your elementary school age kids to program your mobile phone, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you think owning a hybrid vehicle is for hippies and employees of Greenpeace, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you think the money professional athletes are paid is absurd (because you would’ve played for free given the chance), You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you still pay your bills with conventional checks instead of on on-line bill pay, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you watch the popular television show “Glee” for the sensible dialogs of Sue Sylvester and the Journey tunes, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you still wash your own car, mow your own lawn, have less than a 50” flat screen television and make your kids lunches, You Might Be a Dinosaur
• If you shook your head in agreement at five or more of the above referenced If………….s, You are a Dinosaur!

Dinosaurs remember the good old days, when it was totally acceptable in society to see a suave and debonair older gentleman in the company of an attractive younger woman? My, how times have changed. Now that “Dinosaur” relationship is frowned upon. My favorite new recording artist, Ke$ha (what, you thought I would say Justin Bieber?), even has a song out detailing the “creepiness” of my peer group appreciating the cutting edge look or her and her songstress contemporaries, such as Katy Perry, Fergie and Rhianna. Appropriately the song is called D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R. On the other hand, an older woman/younger man soirée is now in vogue with women being assigned the cool moniker of “Cougar”. What’s wrong with the term Lady Dino? My, how times have changed.

Back in the Jurassic era of our youth, life was so different from today. We often rode in the back bed of a pick-up truck and never wore seat belts in the car. When traveling by planes, trains or automobiles, we read books and listened to whatever music was available. Portable DVD players, laptop computers and iPods were crazy space age ideas no one had the capacity to even imagine, except maybe Will Robinson or Scotty on Star Trek.

We had three national television networks to choose from (NBC, ABC and CBS) and an antenna strapped to the chimney for reception. Now there are 600 channels available through an underground cable. There was once only one type of gasoline and it cost under $1.00 per gallon. We sat in the car while friendly service station attendants pumped it and even checked under the hood. Now we pay $4.00 a gallon and have no communication with anyone.

We went to drive-in movie theaters, carnivals and picnics. No one ever wore a helmet while riding a bike or skating. We talked with our friends over the phone, used the Encyclopedia to do our homework and I had a Pterodactyl as a pet.

All of my dino –contemporaries are feeling a sense of gloom, knowing that we either adapt to the new environment (quickly) or face eventual extinction. Fossil records do indicate that birds evolved within theropod dinosaurs, which are the ancestors of all modern birds, so perhaps there is hope for us old guys.

If we ever so slightly modify our lifestyle and expand our comfort level, mainly by observing our children, we can hopefully preserve our existence. We’ll either adapt trying or spontaneously combust from environmental overload, not unlike the asteroid theory that wiped out the real dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Sadly, I feel very old right now.