the shark years

To my eleven-year-old mind, sharks were the thing. I was intrigued by them; by the danger, the mystery, and the power that existed behind those little eyes and smooth skin. One of the highlights of my fifth grade year happened during our fifth grade field trip to the Omaha Zoo - I got to wander through a three-sided glass tunnel through a tank of lemon sharks. Let me just say, I was in heaven. Later, I sat in the car next to my geophysics-graduate dad and told him that I was going to be a marine biologist when I grew up. (Nevermind that math and science had never been my strong suits.) He sounded excited about the idea and so I liked it even better.

In elementary school, I was seriously considering my options concerning going down in a shark cage. However, there was one family reunion in particular at which this decision was threatened.

We had a beach house for a week on the coast of North Carolina, and on our way back from town one night, we stopped at a drug store. There were a lot of books for sale there, one of which was Jaws. I read the back cover of the book and was freaked out for the rest of the night (almost the rest of the week), considering I could hear the waves from my window in the house. I don't know if I thought the sharks could come out of the water and get me in my bed, or what, but it was traumatizing. I think I'm over it now, but now every time I listen to Linda Ronstadt's lullaby album, I remember that we listened to that CD on our way back to the house that night and even now I remember the terror I felt.

It didn't completely ruin my fascination, however. In sixth grade, I had a friend in my class at school who was pretty cute, for a twelve-year-old (besides the fact that his name was Clark - I was an avid fan of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - my best friend was impressed that I had managed to find my own Clark), and he loved sharks, too. Even so, I was proud to say that my fascination had existed before I knew him. I kept a list that he gave me of every shark species that had ever existed in the world. The plan was to research all the sharks on the list, until I knew at least a few things about all of them. I never got very far, but one I do remember in particular was the Carcharodon megalodon, a prehistoric shark which was probably extra interesting considering it was extinct and a lot of the information I found about it was speculative. Later, I did a science report on the tiger shark, which was another favorite of mine (mostly because I knew about it).

"What would I do, if little Dierdre were suddenly here, bursting out of her St. Mary's uniform, asking me what comes next? I'd say, Baby, don't you worry about a thing. Everything's gonna be great. I mean, how many of us turn out the way we think we will when we're kids? How many of us grow up to be astronauts...or prima ballerinas? We just all do the best we can."--Disney's "The Kid"