Dinosaurs Under the Hedge

“We should put it right there,” Andy said. “It’s wet there. It’ll rot, right?” We peered under the yew bushes that bordered my grandma’s property, and he pointed at a muddy spot.

I nodded, and took a deep breath. I chucked a small, shiny hardcover book with a silver spine into the puddle, then recoiled as if it were a grenade. Nothing happened, of course, nor had I expected anything. Still, I wanted to get away from that book as soon as possible, and so did Andy. We both looked at each other, and then at the sun, slowly creeping beneath the edges of the houses to the west.

“I think it’ll just decompose. It doesn’t count as mine anymore,” I said with a firm proclamation, then whispered, “God, this book is not mine!” Andy nodded in affirmation, and we both turned to head back into the house, our hands chilly and covered in dust from the leaves.

We went inside. We sat, tense, in front of the television watching Wishbone on PBS. In that episode, he was dressed as Odysseus and saving the day, of course. I tried my hardest to focus on that little dog and not think about the book. Of course, though, it still clung to the corners of my mind like thick cobwebs, and would for weeks afterwards.

I broke down crying at recess a couple times and had to hide under the Big Green Slide (or BGS, as everyone called it).

I struggled through assignments, particularly in science classes, but I tuned out elsewhere, too. This elicited a lot of sighs from the teacher, and mockery from other students. I didn’t sleep during class, but I wanted to.

The little silvery book beneath the yew bushes kept dominating my thoughts. Whenever I’d exit or enter my grandma’s house, I couldn’t help but remember its presence, glancing anxiously at those bushes. Often, I’d get off the school bus and immediately trot into my room, put me head on my pillow, and let myself sob with fear.

Fear? Yes, fear. I was anxious most of the time, but sometimes, the anxiety got so bad that I’d call it actual fear. What was I afraid of, exactly? I wasn’t worried about any kid or adult finding the book, and certainly not my family. I wasn’t worried an animal would uncover it, so what was I worried about?

Going to hell.

At the time, I firmly believed that if I didn’t excise that book, its contents, and all remnants of the same from my life, God (and his faithful sidekick Jesus) would send me directly to hell. Why, you ask? If I could, I’d show you the cover of this remarkable book. Sadly, though, I can’t find a picture online.

My memory's foggy, but I think my mom bought it for me at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, and it was beautiful. The covers were gorgeous holographic silver material and emblazoned with images of Lisa Frank-inspired dinosaurs, and especially a sauropod. The title was something (?!) to the effect of Life Begins.

Inside the book’s silvery covers, the thick, creamy pages glowed with full-color artwork of many more dinosaurs and, in later chapters, other prehistoric beasts. This was, of course, accompanied by a kid-appropriate introduction to paleontology. The first few chapters, remembering right, had a lovely description of single-celled life’s inception in the oceans.

It was a wonderful book, really, and that’s what made the situation so terrible. Was I really destined for a fiery afterlife for reading (and enjoying) a book that spoke of evolution and dinosaurs? I wasn’t sure, but definitely not willing to take any chances with my immortal soul, even at that tender age. After all, even many of my school friends would probably agree with the sentiment - evolution, and the belief in it, were a ticket to hell.

My dad, George, had implied as much during a recent car ride, hence my insistence that Andy and I ditch the book. It had happened so quickly. George converted to Christianity prior to his engagement to my stepmother, Janine. Her parents weren’t keen on her marrying someone who wasn’t “saved” in the usual evangelical protestant sense of the term. So, he did that, and hurried to implicate me in it, as well.

That night, we’d gone to Applebee’s. George, Janine, and I were always going to restaurants, because neither of them knew how to cook. I could hardly complain as a preteen who enjoyed cheeseburgers and chicken fritters, after all. This time, though, I was told at dinner we’d be having a serious conversation in the car afterwards.

George looked terribly tense and melodramatic. He was always the sort to seek attention, always the sort to play things to the hilt, but back then, I took it all quite seriously myself. My mind clouded with fear - was I in trouble? Janine smiled and told me it was a good thing, and that I’d enjoy learning what they both had to tell me.

Once in the car and buckled in, we got on the highway and began to drive towards the city center - apparently we were going to loop around a bit rather than taking a direct path home. The point was to have time for George to explain something to me during the drive, but what? A few minutes after we drove off, he started.

“God is real,” George began, and I nodded. I’d always believed in God, even in grade school. My mother, who I lived with most of the time was a Unitarian Universalist, and that played a role.

“…but so is Satan,” he continued. “And Hell. But you’re my daughter, so I need to explain to you about the end of the world, and how to avoid Hell. Janine’s saved from Hell, and so am I, and I want you to be, too.”

“I try to be a good kid,” I mumbled, confused, and nodded.

He continued, explaining that being “good” didn’t matter. God didn’t want people who were good. He wanted people who were “saved.” I had heard the term before, even at that age, but this was the first real elaboration. To be “saved,” George said, you had to admit to God that you were a sinner and pray for forgiveness, then do no more sinning. Only the “saved” could join God and Jesus in Heaven.

It was extremely important that I know this, George said. There wasn’t much time left! It turned out that God was about to pull the plug on things. The temperatures had reached incredible lows and highs that year, with flooding and wild hurricanes down south. George pointed to that (not as a sign of climate change, but...) as proof that, as George phrased it, “He will return soon.”

When Jesus comes back, he told me, the man himself would sort out the believers from those who didn’t. The latter would go straight to hell along with anyone undecided. There wouldn’t be any chance to change your mind, either, so now was the time to make the right decision. And just saying that you believed wasn’t enough - you had to ditch “worldly” beliefs like evolution.

George probably just mentioned evolution in particular because he knew I loved dinosaurs. Oh well.

Janine sat quietly listening, adding little points of Bible trivia here and there. It was clear she knew the material far better than George. I suspect the only reason he took the lead in this conversation was because he was the man. Whatever. In retrospect, he kind of butchered the Bible, and even American Protestant theology as it usually manifests. I have little love for either, and hence I’m not a Christian today, but still - the man could’ve led with the strongest point (Jesus love? I don’t know) rather than the topic of hell.

This was why, a few weeks afterwards, I was moved to ditch my (nigh-favorite) book, simply because it was about evolution. I’d gotten a warning about that in particular, you see. George mentioned that many teachers and grown-ups had lied to me about the earth, animals, science and how it all worked, and especially about things like evolution, which were dangerous to believe. God didn’t like you if you believed in those things. I didn’t want to take any risks with my immortal soul, so I was quickly moved to act, but it didn’t feel like enough.

The weeks passed after I ditched the book under the yew bushes. I began to have stomach cramps alongside the bouts of tears and anxiety. I tried desperately to stop thinking about the book, to stop speculation. I couldn’t. I wondered constantly. Was I still on God’s naughty list because of it, or did tossing it under the bush exonerate me?

Eventually, I told my grandma all about this. I cried the entire time I spoke to her. I explained about the scary feeling that was overwhelming me at times. My grandma, a sensitive yet somewhat childish old woman, didn’t know how to respond. She was never the one to dole out wisdom or structure for me, leaving that to my mom. And this wasn’t a matter of discipline anyways…

In this case, she was actually stymied by the fact she’d promised me she wouldn’t tell my mom about it. Instead, she promised the book would vanish, but also said that my fears were unfounded, and that I’d feel better soon. I didn’t understand that, of course. She also told me that if the “scary feeling” started to come back, especially in public, I could tell her, and she would help. I didn’t believe her about that - after all, it was my grandparents and mom, a secular crowd, who had taught me about dinosaurs and “how life began” anyways, right? I shuddered.

If I remember right, the ride home from Applebee’s had taken place in late September. As the leaves began to change, I found a letter from the teacher in the small cubby we used for such things at school - it was addressed to my mom. I wanted to open it myself, but expected swift punishment from her if I did. My mom had a habit of taking away my absolute favorite Sega Genesis games when I did things like that, often for weeks at a time. During all this, video games were such a welcome respite, and I didn’t want to risk it. So, I handed the closed envelope to her and waited.

“Honey, would you like to be in the GATE program? You get to decide!” She said. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she wanted an affirmative answer, and expected much more enthusiasm about this from me than I could muster. I shrugged. The “gifted and talented education” program picked up new students roughly every two grades in my small, rural school. I also suspect that the entire concept of “giftedness” is nonsense, but in the 1990s, educators took it rather seriously, designating a lot of resources to “gifted” students and programs.

I didn’t particularly care about being labeled “gifted” in school. It didn’t matter much. The program had a lot of kids in it, and met for two days a week. Nobody was bullied just for being in it or anything, either. It was just like any other class. The kicker, though, was that the teacher of the GATE program was also the school’s computer science director. As such, she wove many lessons about technology into the GATE program.

“Yeah,” was my answer to my mom. “I guess I wanna be GATE. Throw me in there.” I was mostly still thinking about the book under the yew bushes. Not very “gifted” of me, eh? Someone had clearly made a mistake in their recruitment calculations. To this day, I’m fairly certain I’ve got normal intelligence only. I do think GATE programs are kind of a grift. I actually credit my being held back a year before kindergarten (redshirting) for my supposed “giftedness” in elementary school. I also noticed that few of the “poorer” kids got invitations, but that’s a topic for an article in and of itself.

Either way, a spark (very small) set off in me. I wanted access to that computer lab, and if I had to pass as gifted to get it, I would. I fell asleep for once that night thinking about playing Simcity on the cool computers in the GATE classroom next semester. It was a welcome respite from nightmares about Hell. It would be another month before that actually materialized in my life, but it soon did.

And guess what? It was everything I’d wanted and hoped for! The GATE program had the most chill people and cool assignments, not to mention we all sat at computers all day. We played Simcity and experimented to discover how the game worked, writing down numbers from it and comparing results. We made glow-in-the-dark kites for purposes I currently can’t recall, but they were beautiful. We measured the water level at our local creek and studied the presence of snails and similar creatures there. And, yes, we even created small websites in the GATE program, a few years later, in sixth grade.

These were all things the school could’ve done in normal classes for “regular” students too, if they’d cared to provide that kind of enriching experience - but they didn’t. Again, a topic for an article in and of itself, and probably beyond my (and this website’s) scope entirely. Either way, slowly, something happened. Things like Simcity, like the glowing kites, the ice cream we made in baggies outside to learn about chemistry, all those aspects of the GATE program seemed to get really “large” inside me.

They started to overwhelm all those scary thoughts about evolution and Hell, and how I may or may not be going there. Gradually, I forgot about the book under the yew bushes most of the time. When I did think of it, I shuddered a bit, but let it drop. George and Janine tried their best to continue my religious education, but I slept in church sometimes and (so much for “giftedness!”) didn’t grasp a lot of the sermons I heard.

Occasionally, the panicky feeling would overtake me again that semester/ I’d turn to my grandma and tell her. She’d give me a hug, and assure me the book was gone but it didn’t matter, because books didn’t hurt anyone. A year later, a teacher presented me with a sheet of hyperrealistic, extremely detailed dinosaur stickers, including my favorite, a sauropod. I felt inside myself for that sharp, scary feeling of “going to Hell,” and it was nearly gone, so I affixed the stickers to the front of my school planner, and went on with my life.

George and Janine would spend the next few years trying even more desperately to force evangelical protestant religion onto me, but it didn’t stick. The family that prays together, stays together. George was fond of saying that. Nevertheless, now, almost thirty years later, George is on his third wife, has multiple convictions for various violent and drug offenses, and most of his many children have him blocked on all online venues.

I wish I still had my dinosaur book. It was such a beautiful volume, with shiny silver covers and technicolor images to rival even Lisa Frank! It showed not only dinosaurs, but also other prehistoric critters. Amazing. If anything, that kind of publication (from my current perspective) seems so life-affirming that it can only be said to honor God in a major way. It was sick and twisted that I had felt the impetus to (essentially) destroy it after the lecture from George. What kind of person puts that sort of thing on a kid?

Are you curious how I feel about evolution nowadays, perhaps? I certainly don’t believe in the theory of evolution. Rather, I know and accept it, much like the theory of gravity. I also know that, being a story of our physical existence as a species on this planet for only a precious few millennia, it has few theological implications. As for God? I would think She wants Her children to know the truth. Maybe you believe differently, though. Moving along now.