Further Consideration of Attitude

I'll be adding to this post throughout the day as I have a complicated schedule, culminating in my favorite Quincy event, the monthly Art Walk. I read in a Writers Digest article "The essence of good nature essays is to see what is seldom seen". I thought this photo of leopard lily, Lilium pardalinum Kellogg, exemplifies that thought pretty well. I'm thinking that this spring I'll take lots of photos of the backsides of flowers.
Years ago I made a panoramic drawing of all the fronts of buildings along a couple of blocks of a quaint, historic town in North Carolina. I am tempted to do the same thing here in Quincy because we have a few blocks "downtown" that have that 1800's look. One day I walked the alleys behind all these buildings contemplating a landscape from that point-of-view. Yuck! I gave up the idea quickly. I think the backsides of flowers are a safer bet.
I woke up this morning wondering why I have very strong and pleasant memories of my college class, Vertebrate Natural History, but very vague memories (although not unpleasant) of Invertebrate Natural History. I think it's because the professor in the former had the attitude of a naturalist and the other fellow did not. I liked both professors very much, but the invert prof seemed to be more of an indoor guy. We did lots of microscope and textbook work. I got lots of valuable knowledge from him and have been applying it all my life on walks through the woods, teaching biology, playing with my kids, etc. But the vertebrate guy, Dr. Royal Suttkus, is an ichthyologist, and I think he thought he was a fish. We'd be walking around near some creek or spring on a cold, foggy day, dreaming of being in some cafe, warming our insides and enjoying watching Dr. Suttkus flirt with the waitresses, when suddenly Sutt would appear out of the bushes in swim trunks with a 10' seine in hand and shout "Someone get the other end." More often than not it was I who grabbed the other end and joined him in the frigid water. Little did I know at the time I was making a small contribution to what Sutt eventually built into one of the world's largest ichthyology collections at the Tulane Natural History Museum. Sutt's idea of studying animals was to join them in their natural habitat and really identify with their lives. Sure, he'd go back to the lab and count and measure and attach Latinized names to anything new and publish his findings, but his real joy was obviously being in the water - warm or frigid, clear or stagnant, fresh or salty, safe or infested with water moccasins, if there were fish there he jumped in. I went from being a non-swimmer in high school to becoming a strong swimmer in Dr. Suttkus's company, just to stay alive! Later, I'll reminisce about the shotgun and formaldehyde side of the equation. I have an attitude about those things.