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Of Memory and Jellyfish
Memory is a funny thing.
When I was eighteen my friends and I would pile into my car and drive a few miles out into the country and park on a country road. We'd walk along a railroad track, across a trestle and down a dirt path back into the woods where we'd find a series of abandoned quarries. The first quarry had crystal clear water and was easily accessible. I loved the solitude and beauty of the quarry. After a long swim we would lay in the sun and I would look around and take in the texture of the rock and smell of the wild blackberries ripening in the August heat. As the day cooled we would start a small fire and cook some hot dogs, drink some beer and talk about our plans for the future.
My buddy Joe was never content to enjoy the simplicity of just laying there so he would explore. As you walked deeper down the path you'd find other quarries; Each one more primitive and overgrown.
One day he called me saying he had to show me something. He wouldn't tell me what it was but as we drove I could see how excited he was. It was really hot as we walked down the dirt path passing the first couple quarries. We got to one of the back quarries and he told me to look. At first I didn't see them, only the glare of the sun on the water. Then I saw them, only I couldn't believe what I was seeing; Small circles about the size of a quarter in the water.
What we were seeing were freshwater jellyfish! I looked at Joe and he was grinning ear to ear. He said he had discovered them there the week before and had to tell someone about it. He said he had been to the library and hadn't found anything about them. They were beautiful.
We spent a couple of hours just sitting in the sun watching the jellyfish and the basking in the mysteries of life. The next day I went to his house and found that he had a giant glass bottle filled with water and five of the jellyfish. We drank some beer and found that watching the bottle of jellyfish was like watching a lava lamp.
Years passed and I grew up. I stopped going to the quarries and forgot about the warm sun and the jellyfish. I've been off work now for a few months and had time to relax and retreat to memories past. When I remembered back to the jellyfish I began to have doubts. I wondered if possibly I was remembering a dream. I've never heard anyone in the past thirty years mention anything like it.
Yesterday I googled Freshwater Jellyfish and found a site of a biologist who studies freshwater jellyfish. Dr. Terry L. Peard has a site that will tell you all you want to know about the creatures. You can find it HERE . One interesting thing is on the webpage he has a map of where they are found and it shows most of the states in the U.S. Then he has a list of sites where they have been documented. One of the sites on the list is the quarries that we used to swim.
I heard recently that Joe moved out to California and became a patent attorney. I wonder if he ever thinks about long summer days of swimming in quarries, cold beer and jellyfish.