Tar Pit Charity – Pacific Geo Lab

Tar Pit Charity
What you can’t buy for $4.68

Special note: This takes place at the fossil site where George and I inhaled the spores which led to our very near fatal lung disease Coccidioidomycosis (Cocci). A few days after this we entered LDS hospital in Salt Lake City. Six weeks later we emerged looking like wraiths. More than three decades on, we’re still the two most severe cases of pulmonary Cocci ever to survive. Not exactly the way I wanted to become famous!

Can’t you read?! she yelled venomously, It’s in ENGLISH!
George and I looked at each other, completely baffled by this woman’s demeanor.
No, Lady, I can’t read! George blasted back, right to her face.
Well then you probably don’t stop at stop signs either, do you! she hissed.
Stop signs? I replied sarcastically, What are those?

This whole episode was annoying to the max. Here was this woman, in her laughable position of authority, unleashing contemptuousness so caustic one would have a hard time matching it in a maximum security prison. But we weren’t in a maximum security prison, we were in a local fast food joint trying to make the most of the very last $4.68 to our collective name.

It was 114 degrees outside, which isn’t an exceptional occurrence in Taft, California in July. The temps had been cresting 100 degrees for the whole week. While not necessarily surprised, George and I were especially roasting in this heat. Our fossil site east of town consisted of a six foot deep hole of black tar baking in the desert. And in case you didn’t know it, tar, being viscously black, absorbs sunlight, heating itself many degrees higher than the surrounding environs. If it was 110 on the thermometer, it was 135 down in the pit. Dante’s Inferno is probably less intense.

We had just completed our stint at Geology Field Camp in the mountains of Colorado and had gone west to connect up with an old schoolteacher friend, George Ast. He brought us out to the oil fields and tar pits in the deserts north of Los Angeles in search of Pleistocene fossils. Not really expecting to find much, we were only going to stay the day and move on. To our surprise, however, we stumbled upon a bed of Ice Age animal bones: Saber-toothed tiger, Dire wolf, various birds and even a bear were entombed in a 10-inch layer of sediments six feet underground. The game was afoot. George Hecht and I, being free of employment and other such trivial life obligations, elected to stay put to dig out the bed. George Ast left at dusk to head back home.

George and I were living in Betsy, my blue Ford window van that we had driven across the country. The problem with Betsy was she had no AC. (Nor did she have heat, not that heat was a present concern…) The only thing that made living on site in the tar pit desert bearable was the cool settling in at night. Deserts are like that – the night temps can easily drop 60 degrees from the day’s high.

Our excavation was about six feet below a tar-rich layer on the surface. We dug mostly early in the morning and late in the evening because of the scorching heat in-between. By late morning the surface tar would heat up and start to liquify. It would ooze slowly from the edges of the hole, dripping down into the pit and scalding us if we weren’t paying attention enough to avoid it. Tar on the move is so hot that if you touch it – or it touches you! – it’ll sear your flesh like a firebrand. Before we were done, George and I both acquired several of these “cigarette burns” on our arms, legs, and even necks. To avoid said scalding, our routine called for pausing the excavation during the midday heat when the tar really started moving. We’d head to town to cool off at the public pool and stock up on supplies and equipment.

We had been camped at the site for nearly a week, and while it was rent free – being as it was in the middle of an active and stinking tar pit! – it was not without expense. This was the days before credit cards and we had blown our cash on tools and food – more the former and less the latter, to our present chagrin. We had called in the cavalry by way of phoning home for money to be sent by Wells Fargo, but being a weekend, we wouldn’t see any moolah until Monday. We had 48 hours to go and only a couple packs of Ramen noodles left in the grub box. We needed protein! So we dug through the van seats, carpet, and all our backpacks to scrounge what we could and came up with the princely sum of $4.68.

In town we found the lone grocery store closed – it’s AC had died. Our only options, therefore, were restaurants. Being supportive of local community over multinational corporate giants, we opted for patronizing Burgers Plus – obviously a local joint. But when we walked in and asked what’s the most food we could get for $4.68, we were subjected to the scathing verbal assault recounted above. Apparently, the Plus in Burgers Plus was a heaping helping of abuse.

Yeah, OK, we probably looked as though we had just come from digging holes in the ground, which we had. And perhaps our special personal fragrance was a little strong, which I’m sure it was. Still, this was not the Metropolitan Opera we were attending here and the hostility displayed by this woman was completely unwarranted.

To hell with this, George said angrily, and we headed for the door.

Across the road was a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Although it was against our ethos to enrich corporate America, especially corporate fast food, we were so steamed by the surly attitude at Burgers Plus we made a bee-line for it, hoping the Burgers Plus lady was watching as we did so.

The KFC was smaller, tidier, and cleaner than Burgers Plus. Since the abuse just minutes before was undoubtedly related to our long hair and unkempt, dirty appearance, we were a bit self-conscious as we approached the counter. The young gal looked at us a little askance but nonetheless asked cheerily May I help you?

We asked the exact same question we had 10 minutes earlier across the street: What is the most food we can get for $4.68? The woman stared at us, her face blank. Not a good sign. Were we going to have to stomp out of this place as well? Was this whole town going to give us a continuous onslaught of abuse for just being a couple down-on-our luck geology dirtbags?

What do you mean? she finally asked, looking perplexed. At least now we had an audience. We explained the whole thing: Where we were from, what we were doing, and how we ended up here with our load of riches totaling $4.68.

While she wasn’t exactly smiling, she wasn’t actually scowling either. After our story she thought about it then told us to hang on and disappeared around the corner. She came back with the manager. He introduced himself as Dan but begged off the handshake – another bad sign. Tell him what you just told me, she said. And we did.

Now that’s interesting, he said, finally. Interesting? Well, yes it was, I’m sure, interesting. But the word “interesting” is not something you want to hear from a stranger, especially when you are a stranger in a strange land. How about you boys wait over there, he pointed to a booth, and I’ll be with you momentarily. He then turned his attention to the only other customers in the place.

We were caught completely off guard by this. All we wanted was a little food, for Christ sakes… Could it be so frigging hard to understand? We were hungry! But we had little choice – he was the manager, after all – so we took to the booth having no idea what was up. The manager finished up with the customers and went into the back.

As the minutes ticked by, we began to get uneasy about the situation. George and I talked furtively – this whole thing was beginning to seem like a setup. Did he know the gal at Burgers Plus? Had she called him? Was he calling the cops now? Or was he getting his gun? Maybe we should make a run for it and get the hell out while we still had a chance! But, then again, what if we were overreacting? Besides, this place had some damn good air conditioning! Our roasted hides enjoyed soaking up the cool, so we stuck around.

After about 15 minutes Dan came out holding a plate piled high with the Colonel’s finest. Obviously it was his lunch break, and by the looks of it, this man could put away some meat! There was a mountain of it. But then he slid the plate onto the table between us and said, Have at it, boys! More’s on the way! Next, out came the gal, with corn and mashed potatoes and cole slaw. Then Dan returned with another pile of meat. For a couple of hungry, worn out, deadbeat fossil freaks, it was an instant fiesta!

I had to get rid of the other customers before doing this, Dan said, as he filled the table with food, They might not understand. But this stuff is gonna expire soon, so rather than toss it, we warmed it up and it’s yours. Seems like a good cause…

He pulled up a chair. So you guys are out in the desert digging fossils? Tell me about it…

Between gleefully stuffing “extra crispy” and “original recipe” chicken flesh into our mouths, we told him everything about our excavation, and a lot more. He was fascinated. Dan was a Scout Master and keenly interested in natural history – especially paleontology. He was eager to have his kids learn about it. It’s all about educating the next generation! he said. And we agreed. So we arranged a time the next day for him to bring the troop out on a field trip where we’d give them a private tour.

Before we left Dan packed us up with so much food, we ate like kings for the next two days, Ramen noodles and Burgers Plus be damned. We met him and his troop the next evening and showed them around the dig site. George and I had created a little mini-dig in a small pit adjacent to our hole and each kid had a chance at digging their own fossils. They all got some fossils to take home. Dan and the kids were thrilled. They all declared it was “The best field trip ever!”

Before he left, we told Dan how grateful we were for his charity. He responded that he believed we are all offered opportunities to help each other and although sometimes it may not look pretty, in the end we’ll be glad we did. He said he was certainly glad he helped us out and how it grew into an opportunity for him and the kids. We’re all richer for it!, he said.

Money can’t buy this kind of enrichment, but somehow $4.68 did. Come to think of it, he never actually charged us anything!

AFTER WORDS
Many years later – circa 2008 – while tooling around the country and gathering content for our Journey Guides series of natural history guidebooks, Julie and I ended up going through Taft. What was once a small, rundown, little roadside town, was now a bustling city in its own right, complete with strip malls and car dealerships. The face of the town had changed dramatically by this point and I could not reconcile my memory to the present architecture. But I was determined to find the old KFC, if it even existed anymore. It didn’t. But there was a new one adjacent to a fairly modern strip mall on the edge of town, not far from the oil fields. We pulled in. The gal at the counter was pleasant as we ordered a chicken meal:

Original Recipe or Extra Crispy?, she asked, as we stood there enjoying the cool product of a well-tuned air conditioner.

Both… I replied.