I may be retired but still seeking education.  My kids are the first to affirm that their Dad is always open to new ideas.

So again this fall I am taking a number of courses at the North Island University campus.  This is under the auspice of Elder College.

One of the courses is on the local historical paleontology.  (I told you about the basalt stone)  Now there is no degree at the end of the course for me but also not exams, so OK.

Our instructor is an interesting character.  He actually does not have any university degrees but he has a lifetime of digging for fossils and is the local expert at our museum.  His background is as a handy man mechanic that drifted out here to the Island when his brother discovered the first bones for our most famous fossil the Elasmosaur.  Over the years Pat became the local expert and personally found and excavated a number of big fossils.

Now he is not the most gifted in presentation style.  He has a set of slides but he often meanders.  What he is good at, is telling stories.  He covers the essentials of the last 250 million years for our island but mostly talks about the search for fossils up and down the island.  Granted I think I mentioned our Island rose from the sea so all the fossils are marine creatures.

Our local museum is filled with marine fossils that he has found or been the leader to dig out.

Our class is less than 2 hours each week but at the end, not sure if we have learned much, but the stories are great.  Fortunately every second class is in the field where hike down into shale beds along a river or on a cut blasted out when they were building the highway up our island.  We get a chance to take our chipper hammers and try to discover a new species.

Education can be fun.