MEMO

 

 

TO:                        Professor Raven Walkersmate, PhD, FRS, FSA

 

FROM:                 Philbin Hyperborea, PhD, LSA

 

RE:                        Your Student!

 

 

Ravi,      

 

               As you may have heard, I will soon be filing an official complaint with Penguin Council concerning the activities of one of your students on the recent expedition to the Lakes region of Old Northland.  You must understand that I do not take this action lightly, nor do I intend it as criticism of your research program.  I simply don't know what else I can do?  It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to demonstrate my 'first contact' theory, and she ruined it!  Let me briefly recount events so that you can appreciate why I must take this action.

 

               As you are well aware, the startling discovery of modern natives living in the Lakes region shocked the world.  The existence of descendants, offspring of survivors of the Great Cataclysm, who had lived and developed in isolation for untold years (actually I hope this isn't a sore point, since I know one of your primary goals was to establish precisely the date of this event) seemed almost too much to hope for.  Here was the opportunity to gaze into the eyes of ancient men and women.  More importantly, it provided the once in a lifetime opportunity to confirm my 'first contact' hypothesis.  I could document the uncontaminated mental structures of these living fossils and, by so doing, feel at first hand the life of the primitive.  My apparatus was immediately made ready and, after proper protective meditation, I immediately made my way to your base camp in Ann Arbor.

 

               As you will remember, the villages were not in Ann Arbor, where your project was based, but were centered on an area not far away, up the river towards the former hamlet of Dexter.  While I was angry at the time, I bear you no hard feelings for not providing transportation or student assistants to carry my baggage.  In fact, I can see now that you were acting in the best interest of my research, since by sending me alone, there was less chance of thought contamination.  Imagine my excitement as I saw the smoke from the settlement. In a few moments, the images would be mine. Little did I know that all this trouble and toil was already wasted!

 

               It was difficult moving my baggage and the apparatus across the river.  I found a small rocky ford, but lost my footing as I crossed over.  The sound of my struggling in the water attracted the villagers.  As I pulled myself from the river, sopping wet, a man came forward, and from his demeanor and hand gestures, I took him to be the local headman.  It was about to happen.  Despite my wretched condition, I was bursting with enthusiasm as I rushed to set up the apparatus.  The headman looked on curiously, but I pushed him back.  I had to get the recording just right.  Here was my opportunity to finally silence the critics.

 

               I was about to begin the formal presentation of myself to the natives, when the headman spoke.  "Are you a friend of Chancey Koala?"  The words struck me like a slap.  In those seven words, my research, my  time, and my standing in the profession were all destroyed. "We are all big friends of Chancey" the Head Man repeated. 

 

               In the days that followed, I endeavored to find someone among the villagers that had not been contaminated by that diabolical girl.  Not only had she seemingly met everyone in the village, they had taken her to the surrounding villages and now they were her friends too.  Not happy with just destroying my life's work, it also came out that she had been conducting informal evening seminars on Archaeological Method and Theory among the natives, and had even organized the villagers to conduct systematic field surveys of their land.  The idiot headman proudly showed me a stupid sand map showing the village and surrounding region, on which small stones were used to mark site finds!

 

               Ravi, what was that insufferable girl doing out there?  Couldn't you have kept her in the lab washing sherds or something?  Can you imagine my feelings.  I travel half way around the world (indeed my whole life's journey) to gaze into the eye of ancient man and feel his soul.  I now have a recurring nightmare.  I gaze into the eye of the headman and see not his soul, but rather Chancey Koala!  And worse yet, when I awake, I realize that this horrible nightmare is my real living life!

 

               This is why I must take this issue to the  Penguin Council.  They will find in my favor (with your support, of course) and that will be the last research project the little busy body ever has the chance to wreck.  To destroy the career of one so young is not pleasurable, no matter how deserving, but how can that career possibly compare with my loss.  I know I can count on your support, and with that perhaps we may also begin the process of healing.