Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
During the downpours of the last week I thought I’d use the time to scan my Great Aunt’s guestbook. It dates back to 1913 when she got married and I’ve been wanting to scan it for posterity. I’ve come across entries from years past of my great grandparents, grandparents, parents, my brother and sisters, and even me. Of course, there are many that I have no idea who the heck they were. But there was one that truly intrigued me – Roy Chapman Andrews.
Many years ago, my mother told me we were related and he was an adventurer of some sort. It turns out he was an adventurer, explorer, and naturalist. There’s even a Roy Chapman Andrews Society in Beloit, Wisconsin and they describe him as, “one of the 20th Century’s most famous explorers.”
In 1906 his fascination with natural history got him a job at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He started literally from the ground up… sweeping floors. Twenty-eight years later he became the museum’s director.
One of his claims to fame was in 1923. On an expedition to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert he discovered a nest of petrified dinosaur eggs proving that dinosaurs hatched from eggs, and didn’t give birth to live young. He even had a dinosaur named after him, Andrewsarchus.
I like to think he influenced my love of the outdoors. I can picture myself wearing a Baghera cap and goggles riding next to Andrews in his Dodge roadster, the top down, the wind and sand blowing as we make the first auto caravan across the Gobi desert.
My love of the outdoors germinated at a young age and I like to attribute it to Andrews. I was five years old when my neighbor, Mike Douso and I collected sticks, branches, leaves and whatever else we could scrounge to build our ‘54 Fort. It took the entire afternoon, and we were pretty proud of ourselves. We decided to celebrate its completion by sitting inside, rolling up some dried leaf cigarettes. We didn’t even get to light them when we realized we had built the fort over a bee’s nest. As the swarm started stinging us, we jumped up destroying most of our fort. We frantically tried to escape, but not before a half a dozen stings left their mark. Mike ran through the woods to his house, and I ran to mine. I ran into the house screaming, “Mommy, Mommy, I got stung by a bunch of bees!” in the belief that my mother would provide her patented TLC. Instead of TLC I got no sympathy at all and a lecture for being late to dinner. I never knew the life of an explorer could be that hard.
I don’t know how great an explorer Andrews was, but he was a darn good writer as most famous explorers are. Some explorers become famous for doing daring deeds, but most become famous from writing great stories of their deeds. Andrews wrote over twenty books.
Perhaps Andrews’ greatest claim to fame came twenty-five years after his death. This is where it gets interesting.
Allegedly he is the person Indiana Jones was based on.
He certainly looks the part with his brown fedora-style hat with a wide brim perched on his head along with his Smith & Wesson M1917 pistol on his side.
Even though I was stung by bees and endured my mother’s wrath, I felt Roy Chapman Andrews was a kindred spirit when I read, “I wanted to go everywhere. I would have started on a day’s notice for the North Pole or the South, to the jungle or the desert. It made not the slightest difference to me…I was born to be an explorer...There was never any decision to make. I couldn't do anything else and be happy.”
Neither Roy Chapman Andrews nor I found the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, and I never discovered petrified dinosaur eggs or had a dinosaur named after me. We did, however, share a sense of adventure and travel.
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