One fine autumn day Gumby impulsively decided to finally take a jaunt to Fossil Rock, which up until then had been but a vague notion or even just a dream. He’d heard much about it from others who’d bravely ventured into the Back Yard there on Iffley Road and lived to tell the tale, the local raccoon family and a few bold squirrels, all of whom were were great kidders and not entirely trustworthy. The place sounded like a worthy if not somewhat mysterious or even mystical destination, all the more daunting as G had never ventured beyond the dining room and front and back porches on the second floor. His travel experience was minimal, to say the least.
But his courage and foolhardiness more than made up for any knowledge deficiencies. He was a risk taker all the way, was Gumby, and so were his lifelong chums, Pokey and Godzillito, just up from his home in the Sonoran desert and eager for an adventure. The plucky pair needed no persuasion of any sort and soon the three had boarded the pickup and headed into the crinkly depths of Yellow Leaf Gorge, a temporary but very colorful seasonal phenomenon. “This gorge is beautiful and fragile – a breeze or leaf blower could come along at any time and make quite a mess of it – and like all beautiful things, it is ephemeral” waxed Gumby philosophically and solemnly, sounding more than a bit like John Keats (one of his many poetry-heroes) but not managing that too well. Gumby often went for Keats whenever he tried to sound deep, which maybe he actually was.
“It fell from the sky and might get blown or raked helter skelter into chaos at any moment, and we…we could get crushed by the weight of dozens of garish lifeless leaf-forms, or swept away in the same maelstrom that scatters them so brutally.” Pokey and Godzillito pondered this, then committed to forging ahead anyway, for the heck of it. Besides, it was not a windy day and no rakes or leaf-blowers were within sight or earshot. It being a rather small yard it wasn’t long before they’d reached the Big Rocks Cliffs, and could see Fossil Rock and its cliffmate, Quartzo, perched not at all precariously away up there on the cliff edge. In a daring move Gumb gunned the pickup and there they were, suddenly in the immediate presence of the legendary stones.
Clambering up top, the view was splendid but Gumby soon addressed the matter at hand: “What we’ve got here” he announced with great majesty “are the imprints of claymation creatures from long long long long ago, or even longer ago than that, maybe going all the way back to the Original Clay!” A hush fell over our trio, who all tried to look awed as well as thoughtful.
G and P were so moved that they kind of fell over, which they do quite often anyway in important moments. It clears their heads, and they’re a bit top-heavy, to boot.
They’d heard much about the First Animator and now they contemplated all that she had wrought, so long ago and right up to this fine Fall day. It was a lot to think about, and distracted them from any fears they had about the dangers of their return journey, which was okay because, as with most fears, theirs were highly exaggerated and they made it back just fine, thank you, ready for the next adventure which came along all too soon.
