The Making of a Paleobotanist

Ahhh, the glorious month of May.  Perfect field trip weather in southern California: bright, fresh mornings, so chilly that you have to put on a light sweater, that gently unfold into warm, sunny afternoons with deep blue skies.  When I was a girl at Bushnell Way Elementary, May was the highlight of the entire school year, for May was field trip time.  Nothing could top it for me; not the Halloween costume parade around the school yard, not the Christmas carol pageant, not folk dances at the spring fair.  No siree, I lived the entire year for the annual school field trip in May.

I remember the building anticipation: filling out the field trip form in class, begging my harried mom to sign the permission slip, carefully packing my sack lunch on the big day, dutifully toting my white sweater along, and finally boarding the big yellow school bus.  No school today!  No homework!  And a bus ride to boot!

Where did we go?  I remember a wondrous trip to the tidepools at Cabrillo, climbing all over the rocky shore at low tide and admiring the sea urchins and limpets.  Afterwards we sat crosslegged on the floor and listened intensely to the naturalist at the Cabrillo museum who talked to us about Pacific sealife.  My parents were always avid beach goers—who isn’t in L.A.?—but this was the first time that I heard about the science behind the marine flora and fauna.

I remember several trips to the Arboretum, wandering through the jungle around Baldwin Lake where the early Tarzan movies were filmed and hearing the peacocks cry.  I remember my surprise and delight at encountering the red and white Victorian mansion with fancy Queen Anne woodwork, so different from our family’s modest 1949 house in El Sereno.  Although my parents were also avid botanical garden visitors, it was something else to be taken on a field trip through the Arboretum, to learn about the plants and different vegetation types, to hear about local history and the early settlers of the area.

I even remember a shorter trip to a little studio near the Arroyo Seco, just above the little park with the horse stables, where a local artist showed us how she made stained glass.  She told us how she selected shards of glass for their intensity and brillancy of color, and how she soldered them together with lead strips to create dazzling pieces of art.

Later, while at Burbank Jr. High, our teachers at the Learning Center took us on multiday camping trips to the San Gabriel Mountains and to McGrath Beach every year.  These were my first times away from home, as well as my first times ever sleeping under starry skies.  Our days were spent hiking through the piney woods or enjoying the late spring sunshire with the sweet sound of singing birds and the babbling river.  Through these trips, starting at age 11, I learned to pack my own clothes, cook in a communal kitchen, help out with the dishwashing, enjoy the simple pleasure of singing songs and telling stories around the camp fire, as well as consider a pit toilet a luxury when camping out.

At the beach, we walked for hours along the shore, beachcombing and enjoying the crash of the surf and the shrieks of seagulls unsullied by the loud rock music or artificial noises of the city that were up to then a “natural” part of my normal urban tweenage life.  Our teachers did not succumb to the ease of picking up fast food for dinner, but taught us how to cook spaghetti and boil hot dogs on a camp stove. 

In my Patch biography, I mention my aim of providing a window for readers into the life of a professional paleontologist.  As with most callings, fossil researchers are not just born, they are also formed.  All these early experiences of mine helped further the metamorphsis of a shy Chinese American girl raised in the metropolitan sprawl of Los Angeles into a nature lover and career paleontologist.  These field trips opened doors to another world—the natural world—and helped me to start acquiring the skills that I would later need and use as a field scientist.

Many paleontologists say that it was the first sighting of a menacing T. rex skeleton in a museum that showed them the way to their dream career.  But for me, it was the humble school field trip into the Great Outdoors and my childhood acquaintance with the plant and animal life of the Los Angeles Basin that set my intellectual interests on fire and propelled me to become a botanist and paleobotanist.  At the time, we kids all thought it was merely a day off from school, but now I realize that how much these field trips expanded my horizons during my formative years.

During the months of May and June when we pay homage to those who have spent so much time, thought, and energy raising us, I’d like to raise a glass in gratitude not only to my parents, but also to the idealistic UCLA-trained teachers who shaped and broadened the lives of the Learning Center students at Burbank Jr. High in the early 1970’s: Neil Haworth, Susan Hecht, Gale and Tom Caswell, Carol Williams, and Gary Wesser.  It was your dedicated teaching that made the difference in my life.  Thanks.