Travel Journal, 92
How it began
Traveling the world accompanied by a toy dinosaur draws attention. And I am not one for drawing unneeded attention. And to top it off, I imagine most people don’t think to themselves, “there must be an excellent reason why this full-grown man is playing with a toy dinosaur by the Liberty Bell.”
I assure you, lookers-on, there is a reason. Good or not, you be the judge.
Once upon a time, in the wild west of Cody, Wyoming, there lived a small boy with a love of dinosaurs. This is a ridiculous statement, since all small boys love dinosaurs. One Christmas or birthday or Easter (some such gifty-day), the small boy received a plastic mesh bag filled with delightful plastic dinosaurs. There were triceratopses and brachiosaurs and tyrannosaurs and all-kinds-of-saurs.
The boy loved playing with his dinosaurs. Until one day, the boy returned home from church with his family and found that the dinosaurs had been brutally deformed and mutilated.
The dinosaurs lay scattered across the living room floor. My seven-year-old mind struggled to grasp such a horrifying mass grave of plastic dinos. It did not take a criminal autopsy to discover that the family dog, Bogie, would now be labeled a plastic dinosaur serial killer. None went unmaimed. Each bore the wounds of missing faces, lopped tails, and amputated legs. How can this poor boy play with these terrifying toys that once gave him so much joy? In the words of the immortal Joseph Conrad in his novel Heart of Darkness, “The horror!”
As you can imagine, I was indeed horrified. But that was ages ago. And I promise, my mental and behavioral health has not overly suffered from loss of dinosaurs. And I have since forgiven and granted clemency and full pardon to the schnauzer known as Bogie.
As you can very well imagine, I remind my family of this story often. I joke with them that such trauma scarred me for life. It’s all in jest.
Twenty years later, we all met at a hotel in Fargo, ND. It was one of those rare times when we all get together. With family spread all over the US, seeing everybody at once borders on the impossible.
“This is for you,” my parents said, handing me a small gift. I tore the wrapping paper wildly. To my delight, they had given me a small rubber and plastic dinosaur—a T-rex. And we all had a great laugh about how now I couldn’t tell the story of having my childhood ruined by dino-destructive trauma. (I still bring it up. No one can stop me!)
The next morning, I awoke with craftiness and hilarity in my heart. I proceeded to take pictures of the little T-rex in all sorts of comical positions performing impossible actions, such as brushing his teeth and sitting in the hotel hot tub. I began texting these pictures to the family at around 6 a.m.
Each text said one thing: roar. Thus, Roary was born. And thus he came into our lives. He now travels all over the world, seeking adventure and mischief. He has been in some fun pictures and has given us a great amount of joy. We enjoy the reactions we get from on-lookers. And we enjoy the objective of taking a picture with Roary in remarkable locations.
“What have we started,” my family bemoaned, all those years ago in Fargo.
But it started long ago, in a living room far, far away—with a little boy, distraught over losing his plastic toys.
anthony forrest
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