Armand graduated from Amherst College on June 17, 1935, magna cum laude, "...no one got summa". He collected his prize money of $75.00 and packed up his gear, ready to leave on a road trip early the next morning. He noted in his diary, June 18, 1935:
Got off to a poor start but made Brantford by 1A.M. (500 miles). Johnny is a hell of a driver, which is bad. Lovely country through Cherry Valley in New York. Ford seems OK.
Armand and Johnny paid $100 for a 1929 Ford sedan back in April and had to hunt around for an insurance agent willing to take a risk on college students. Ernie Wedge of Greenfield, was their man.
After a day in Brantford, where his mother and step-father lived, Armand and his buddy were on the road again, heading west. They slept under the stars, in a school yard one night, or wherever the old sedan gave up for the day.
My two sewed up blankets work very well. Car has acted fair, but considerable motor, tire and ignition expense....By some miracle Johnny hasn't killed both of us with his part of the driving. Phew!
On through Elgin, Illinois, Waterloo, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, S.D., by June 24. It must have been such a magical time in Armand's life. He had just graduated college with honors after four years of diligent study and work in the midst of The Great Depression, but the country unfurled it's arms to him:
Slept out near Mitchell. Rained a bit during night. I stayed pat, pulled sleeping bag cover over my head. Later, near dawn, it cleared. Glorious pre-dawn light and crescent moon. It's the real stuff.
Their destination was Arnold's Ranch in the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Badlands of South Dakota contain the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 37-28 million years old. The young men had driven 2,000 miles to go digging for multi-million-year-old bones but the glamour soon faded.
July 8, 1935: Haven't said much about fossil hunting these days. It's tiresome, monotonous business- look at white shiny clay till your eyes water and close; walk in dry baking heat till you sweat buckets; lungs parched even though you drink buckets and then find nothing.
But in just a few days Armand's persistence was rewarded:
July 10, 1935. Today I found a complete hyracodon skull with teeth and upper and lower jaws- one of the best finds of season for expedition and some mesohippus and leptomeryx teeth.
This was Armand's life at 21 years of age and it was colored, even then, with his love of popular culture. He made it a point to see a movie in almost every town along his 2,000 mile trek to the Badlands and involved himself with the people along the way, digging as wide as he did deep.
Got off to a poor start but made Brantford by 1A.M. (500 miles). Johnny is a hell of a driver, which is bad. Lovely country through Cherry Valley in New York. Ford seems OK.
Armand and Johnny paid $100 for a 1929 Ford sedan back in April and had to hunt around for an insurance agent willing to take a risk on college students. Ernie Wedge of Greenfield, was their man.
After a day in Brantford, where his mother and step-father lived, Armand and his buddy were on the road again, heading west. They slept under the stars, in a school yard one night, or wherever the old sedan gave up for the day.
My two sewed up blankets work very well. Car has acted fair, but considerable motor, tire and ignition expense....By some miracle Johnny hasn't killed both of us with his part of the driving. Phew!
On through Elgin, Illinois, Waterloo, Iowa, and Sioux Falls, S.D., by June 24. It must have been such a magical time in Armand's life. He had just graduated college with honors after four years of diligent study and work in the midst of The Great Depression, but the country unfurled it's arms to him:
Slept out near Mitchell. Rained a bit during night. I stayed pat, pulled sleeping bag cover over my head. Later, near dawn, it cleared. Glorious pre-dawn light and crescent moon. It's the real stuff.
Their destination was Arnold's Ranch in the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Badlands of South Dakota contain the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 37-28 million years old. The young men had driven 2,000 miles to go digging for multi-million-year-old bones but the glamour soon faded.
July 8, 1935: Haven't said much about fossil hunting these days. It's tiresome, monotonous business- look at white shiny clay till your eyes water and close; walk in dry baking heat till you sweat buckets; lungs parched even though you drink buckets and then find nothing.
But in just a few days Armand's persistence was rewarded:
July 10, 1935. Today I found a complete hyracodon skull with teeth and upper and lower jaws- one of the best finds of season for expedition and some mesohippus and leptomeryx teeth.
This was Armand's life at 21 years of age and it was colored, even then, with his love of popular culture. He made it a point to see a movie in almost every town along his 2,000 mile trek to the Badlands and involved himself with the people along the way, digging as wide as he did deep.
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Check the blog on Wednesday for a list of movies Armand saw on this trip! I hope to find some clips.
Artwork: Reflective Images