G-Pa Is That a Unicorn?

Did you ever try explaining to a six-year-old what happened to the dinosaurs?

Fifty years ago, Martha and I had taken our three children to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. I remember the many lifelike exhibits vividly. Especially the dinosaur exhibit. Looking up at the Diplodocus fossil was like staring up the side of a skyscraper. Intimidating as it would be to meet one alive, I felt sad because these magnificent creatures no longer existed.

Along with several home-school families, we had chartered a tour bus from Virginia Beach. We made a day of visiting the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial, and the National Zoo. Blue skies, sunny, a temperate autumn day, the group had a picnic lunch between visiting the mall and the Zoo.

Billy, our oldest at six years old, viewed the sites with wide-eyed fascination. “Daddy, what’s this? What’s that? Why did all the dinosaurs die?” Question after question, the boy tired me out with his interrogation. He had a future with the FBI.

Now Martha and I are retired. I do a little writing for a senior’s travel website. Mostly, I enjoy my wife’s companionship.

To our surprise, my grandson, Justin, and his sweet wife, Joy, invited us to come for a trip. A geneticist, he teaches at John Hopkins University. He has three children. The great-grandchildren are about the same age as my children were when we went on our first visit to DC. I looked forward to an enjoyable time with Justin and his family, yet, the sadness returned.

Over the last fifty years, so much has changed. Our first trip, none of us had a cellular phone. I remember our tour guide emphasizing, “DO NOT BE LATE for meetups. The Mall and the Zoo are at capacity. It appears that every school on the east coast has planned to visit here today. Make sure you leave with the same children that you brought.”

Yes, we did return home with our three children, I think?

Excited as two teenagers dating, Martha and I hopped on the East Coast Express in Norfolk, Virginia. Two hours later, we arrived in DC. For short travel, super trains are the way to go.

I mentioned sadness. Not all progress and change is beneficial. Today, the great-grandkids will not see things that we took for granted. The zoo no longer exhibits live animals. The children will see robotic replicas — not quite the same as the real thing.

In the year 2032, Congress had enacted a law prohibiting the captivity of all animals, both domesticated and wild. Now zoos, animal parks, and refuges exhibit robotic look-alike animals in the place of living ones. No longer legal, livestock farming went out of business, except on the black market. The government did sanction a few animal refuges for scientific research that are not accessible to the public.

Only about ten percent of the population still eats meat anymore. Most of the remaining meat-eaters are from the aging Boomer and X-gen population. All meat and vegetables are artificial, genetically manufactured food produced in factories. In some remote areas, people still grow subsistence crops. Or, even illegally raise chickens.

The saying for Montego Foods is this, “With fourteen billion mouths to feed, artificially produced food is the wave of the future.” Authorized by the United Confederation of Nations, Montego Foods owns all food manufacturing world-wide.

I keep mentioning sadness, and I am about to get to that. At eighty-three, my mind wanders. But, I will get to the crux of the story.

I grabbed little Justin Junior’s hand. Justin Junior or JJ for short. He is six — the same age as his Grand Daddy Billy when Billy visited the museum so many years ago. JJ’s Grand Daddy and his Grandma Silvia live on the Mar’s colony. He is a biosphere manufacturing contractor. They plan to retire and return to earth in a year or two.

Justin rolled the stroller back and forth to keep Janae soothed. The ladies came out of the restroom, little Bradley’s stinky diaper changed. Joy had him in that contraption on her chest. Firmly mashed against mommy’s breast, Bradley cooed and went to sleep.

We strolled through the museum taking in all the exhibits. Excited by the lifelike replicas, JJ pointed, asking a million questions. “What is that, G-pa?” JJ has called me G-pa from the time the boy learned to talk. It stuck.

“Is that a unicorn, G-pa? Will we see one at the zoo?”

Years of Yoga paid off. I knelt with only a mild crick in my knees. Eye-level with JJ, I grabbed his shoulders. “JJ, what you see is a rhinoceros. Sadly, they are extinct. That means there are none left alive. You will get to see a robotic one at the zoo.”

“G-pa, what happened to them? Did they die like the dinosaurs?”

I sighed.

How do I tell a six-year-old that greedy people killed off the rhinoceros because some men believed the rhinoceros horn had medicinal properties?

© Don Feazelle 2019