CompuServe Messages

Your son should get his own account! I have plenty of extra Compuserve "snap pack" sing-up kits that include a small time credit and a reduced sign-up fee, if you like, I'd be glad to send him on. It sounds like he'd make another great Dixon contributor to the Science Forum! As I said in my last message, I'd love to find more roadcuts in the stretch between Topeka and Kansas City. For example, I had a somewhat apocryphal story from a friend. He said someone once drove him from Topeka to the KCI airport via some back-roads, in order to "save time". This friend stopped at one point to show him an incredibly fossil-laden roadcut. I went to the original source, and the driver on this trip had no idea of what I was talking about, although the passenger insists it happened this way. This happened within the last five years or so. As for Parkville fossils, how large are the nicest, largest pieces you've seen pulled from there? When I was there last time (last January), I hoped that someday someone would use some stronger earth-moving equipment to scrape away more of the hillside underneath a particularly fruitful horizon on the left side, under a tree, if you face the cut. Also, when I went inside the hill (?!) to ask permission, I found that the grounds crew had no idea that this site existed. They gave me permission, and afterwards, I gave them a few samples to adorn their desks. I also left a few pieces lined up along a bank at the site for the next person. I travel by air, and I don't have a lot of space for heavy fossils! Also inside the school, I saw the displays that talked about the local formation. Did you have a hand in putting those together? Does the school have another display or collection of the local fossils? The science hall was closed the weekend I visited.