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Linnea Milsten
1/7/10
Period 1
CNF
Long Arms
I was born vertically challenged. I was the girl who always stood in front in school pictures, right next to the teacher so you knew where to find me. It was only natural that when my brother introduced me to my first dinosaur book I chose the biggest and tallest dinosaur to be my favorite, known commonly today as the Brachiosaurus. Brachiosaurus was more than 90 feet long. In order to stand face to face with one you would have to take an elevator to the fourth floor of an office building 113 million years ago.
I remember when I first started school. My mother woke me up early in the morning with a present as big as I was. After tedious minutes spent unwrapping the mountain of paper which concealed it from me I finally reached my goal. There, standing in front of me, was my first stepping stool. I was displeased to say the least. Brachiosaurus meant “arm lizard,” because its forearms were longer than its hind legs and I bet it didn’t need a stepping stool to reach the sink.
But I was no Brachiosaurus. I could not reach eight feet in front of me with the greatest of ease. In fact, without my stool, I couldn’t even reach the sink that towered over me. The most I had in common with the dinosaur was that I was about 50 pounds over weight, and it was about 50 tons over weight. I wasn’t fat though, just well fed.
My parents had been poor most of their lives. My mother was on the streets when she was 17 and my father grew up during the depression in a family of eight children. Even when things were looking up for them Reagan crushed their dreams and laid my father off, leaving my siblings to rely on whatever the church would supply them with for food. I was the lucky one. I was born when my parents finally got their break, and they went out of their way to ensure I never had to suffer the horrendous feelings of starvation.
Brachiosaurus was also very well fed. Each day it consumed more than 440 pounds of food. With its giraffe like neck it could reach the tallest trees that no other dinosaur could. It never had to compete for food, but it was always a struggle to not become food. Like every other animal it too had a bully and its name was Allosaurus.
Once a long time ago Brachiosaurus was small like me and it’s life was just as rough. Every day I dreaded the playground. My big mean classmates enjoyed bullying me to no end because of my height and weight. One day on the playground a boy pushed me into the fence and I fell down. He proceeded to sit on me and hit me in the face with a rock, knocking out several of my teeth. That day has followed me through the years. I am now in high school and I’m still missing 2 of my teeth.
Little Brachiosaurus was not as lucky as I. On the playground of life it found itself running from Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Torvosaurus. If the young Brachiosaurus ever fell near one of these bullies it wouldn’t be beaten up, it would be eaten up. Brachiosaurus was an Herbivore and Carnivores, like Allosaurus and the two other dinosaurs, loved to eat small defenseless plant eaters.
As Brachiosaurus grew up though it got stronger and bigger. It’s skin became tougher and more leathery like. There was hardly a predator alive that could pierce it. Its tail also grew immensely in length and it was used to whip its attackers and when a dinosaur’s limb was broken it usually didn’t live much longer. Carnivorous dinosaurs needed to hunt. If they lost the use of a limb it became extremely difficult to hunt needed prey, and even more difficult to keep from being hunted itself.
Brachiosaurus traveled in herds. A herd helps to protect the small baby dinosaurs and when together it’s vastly more difficult for predators to kill them because in order to grab one a predator must be willing to risk having to fight them all. I may not have a long tail or physically thicker skin, but I am not as sensitive as I used to be and I have made many new friends and when I stand on their shoulders I am as tall as a Brachiosaurus. They are my herd and they defend me from other bullies.
The alpha of my group is my best friend PJ. He towers over me by a good foot and he is the strongest. He is a natural born leader and has the ability to bench press more than 200 pounds. I follow him out of all the bad times and he has kept me alive all these years.
One of the bumps P.J. has helped me through was discovering I, like my father and sister, most likely have diabetes. My mother noticed that I share far too many traits with my father. One day she had me test my blood. My blood pressure and sugar level were sky high. It‘s a terrifying fact, I am not alone though. Brachiosaurus had an extremely long neck and in order to pump enough oxygenated blood to the brain it needed a large heart and extremely high blood pressure. It’s blood pressure was 3 times the average person’s blood pressure.
Brachiosaurus started out small and over the years it became the largest Sauropod to ever walk this planet. It left behind the hugest footprints in the world. I too hope that someday I too can leave behind my own ecological footprint. I hope to make big changes to make up for my small stature. I want to be the next big paleontologist. I want to discover a new even bigger dinosaur! Someday I will be like P.J. and lead my own herd. Brachiosaurus has provided me with so much hope and comfort through the years. If it could go from being four feet to 80 feet I believe someday I can reach my goal of five feet.
 D0N3 · Mon Mar 08, 2010 @ 09:04am · 0 Comments |
