Clearing the Mound
Point and Shoot, FL (YU)—Before
Scrib went over to the Aucilla for the summer, to dig, he and the other crew
member at the Aucilla, Tree, helped the crew that would be digging the mound in
Panacea clear the site.
It
was overgrown with palmetto bushes and scrub oak trees.
They
cleared the undergrowth, drove a stob into the ground, for a reference point,
laid out a grid system, and drove stakes where they wanted to put the first
squares.
It
was hard physical activity in the hot sun.
There was sunburn, the possibility of heat stroke, there were blisters
and sprained muscles, there were insects, that stung, and the crew had to get
used to shitting in the woods, if they needed to shit, during the day. Pissing in the woods, if they needed to piss.
Everybody
carried toilet paper in his or her field pack.
Girls
carried tampons if they were on the rag.
I
don’t think anybody carried condoms, because there was not time for sex, and
sex was not allowed.
Drinking
was not allowed.
The
crew ate one baloney and cheese sandwich, on white bread, apiece, for lunch,
and two Oreo cookies apiece, for lunch.
There
was a water cooler, with water, but no ice, and drinking water between breaks
was discouraged. There were two 15
minute breaks, one between arrival at the site and lunch and one between lunch
and departure from the site, at the end of the day.
The
trucks were parked by the side of the road, at the road, and the crew walked
in, carrying all the tools, including a shovel box, a footlocker with
hand-tools in it, sifter baskets, on roller-skate wheels (sifter frames were
left at the site), a transit, a stadia rod, a tripod, a camera box for the
Graflex Speed Graphic camera, a camera box for the color 35mm single-lens
reflex (SLR) camera, a tripod for each camera. stakes, artifact bags, and two
wheelbarrows. A big spool of twine for
the stakes. Stake nails.
Mamas, don’t let your daughters grow up to be archeologists.
They end up grit-tempered.
The crew walked into the site single-file carrying the equipment. At the end of the day, they carried all the equipment out.
They didn’t padlock the shovel box to a tree and lock it with a padlock.
They even carried the shovel box in and out.
The two biggest men carried it.
That was Scrib and Tree.
I don’t know who carried it after Scrib and Tree went over to the Aucilla.
Scrib had had classes with one of the coeds on the dig, Gloria Monday.
He noticed in classes she would catch his jokes when other classmates didn’t, and he would catch her jokes when other classmates didn’t.
They also saw each other in the university library, where the anthropology and archeology journals were shelved. They hadn’t dated, but they had had coffee together in the Student Union a couple of times.
Scrib noticed how she handled herself at the hard, physical labor.
She jumped to the task, even when they were all tired.
Also, she was always cheerful. She didn’t get grumpy, or bitchy, like a girl. She was strong, eager, gung ho.
None of the rookie field workers had used a shovel before, and she learned as fast as anybody. As fast as Scrib.
Shoveling isn’t a matter of brute force so much as finesse. An archeologist uses a shovel like a surgeon uses a scalpel. It’s an extension, not just of the arm, but of the fingertips. And a woman can shovel as much dirt as a man.
Monday could shovel as much as Scrib.
Monday would become Scrib’s Girl Monday, so to speak. Like Rosalind Russell to Cary Grant in His Girl Friday.
Girl Friday is from Man Friday, an especially capable assistant, from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
Later, Monday would become the primary wage-earner in the family and Scrib the househusband, so he was Monday’s, or Her Man Friday.
When they got married she became Gloria Scribendi. They became Cacoëthes and Gloria, or Scrib and Glory. Glory and Scrib.