As you probably know, the Atlantic Ocean didn’t always exist.
During the time of the dinosaurs, South America and Africa were joined as one land mass.
About 140 million years ago, they began to drift apart, giving way to the South Atlantic. But before that happened, northeastern Brazil directly linked up with Cameroon along the Gulf of Guinea.
Last summer, a remarkable discovery was made:
Scientists found a matching trail of dinosaur footprints — 260 in all from the Early Cretaceous Period — on either side of the Atlantic that are believed to have once been part of the very same trail.
About 140 million years ago, a dinosaur walked from South America to Africa while they were still connected, and even though the continents eventually divided, the footprints remained.
3,700 miles apart.
Astounding.
Also infuriating.
On the unlikely chance that I someday die, I have been trying like hell for most of my life to leave enough behind to be remembered in some feeble attempt to achieve an imperfect immortality:
Books, stories, magazine columns, solo shows, podcasts… anything and everything I can do to leave my mark on this world.
I went into teaching for many reasons, but one was to create positive ripples in the future by helping the children occupying my classroom.
Death is terrifying to me, but coming in a close second is the idea that I have walked this world and persisted on this mortal coil for decades (and perhaps centuries) only to one day become irrelevant and forgotten.
I can’t even bear the thought.
Then some almost certainly stupid dinosaur manages to achieve the same damn thing — 140 million years worth of imperfect immortality — without even trying.
