Go Ask Daddy About Rare Fossils, Famous Eye Patches and Subtleties of Stealing

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I never preview any of my future posts here on the CD.

It’s not that it’s a huge secret. Usually, it’s just that I haven’t started on the next post. You know, I like to keep it fresh around here.

I already know what Monday’s post will cover, though. It’ll be about high school graduation.

I’m still a couple of years away from it with Elise, so it’s not like that. You’ll see what I’m talking about Monday.

Before we delve into the stuff the kids asked about, here’s my top 5 commencement speakers I’d love to hear. Just give me a cold one and a comfy place to sit:

5. Comedian Richard Lewis. Can you imagine? “Yeah, graduation. You know, the disappointment of your life will start. Today. In the parking lot. Just, stay where you are. Don’t put yourself through it.”

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4. Former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight. Rude, crude, profane. Let The General prepare the outgoing class for the real world. You might not want to go out and save the world, but you’ll be ready to beat Purdue.

3. Oscar Wilde. Hell, I’d even attend class at UNC Chapel Hill to hear that speech. Or nebraska.

2. Lizzy O’Leary. Sigh. NPR’s Marketplace Weekend host knows about everything. Like, everything. Even the unimportant stuff. She breaks news, asks the right questions, makes you laugh. And makes your face hurt from excessive smiling and thinking. Or is that just me?

1. Jennifer Lawrence. Yes. Honesty. Humor. An accidental F-bomb (those are the best), and exuberance. We could all use some of that now, couldn’t we?

1. Have they found dinosaur skin?

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No. Fred Flintstone lost his brontosaurus-skin wallet at the end of season 3.

That would have been impossible. Mankind has been around only about 200,000 years. Brontosaurus roamed the earth – all dinosaurs roamed, have you noticed? Never do they amble or flock or amble – 150 million years ago.

(And they were apatosaurs, because a brontosaurus doesn’t even exist.)

Scientists in 2007 found a 67-millon-year-old hadrosaur they called Dakota. Maybe because they found it in North Dakota. The bones they found still had skin and tendons attached. More rare than the state of North Dakota appearing on Coach Daddy?

The process by which a duck-billed dinosaur has to go through to create a fossil like this:

1. Dakota the Duck Bill had to die, then not have predators or scavengers make lunch of him. Or get swept away by a stream. Or struck by lightning or a meteor. Check.
2. Dakota’s soft tissue had to mineralize before bacteria got to it. Check.
3. Got that? Good. Just wait another 7 million years, and you have a golden archaeological find. Check.

2. Who do you like better, Peyton Manning or Tom Brady?

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Oh boy. This is like asking, what do you like best, writing or algebra? One’s about loyalty. The other’s about … not hate. Just, tolerance.

Once upon a time, you could lump either one of them. Tim Tebow was my man. Times change, though. Sometimes, a dream quarterback becomes an unemployed man whose shirtless photographs haunt the Internet.

When Manning graduated from that horseshoe helmet to something with a little fire to it, I became a believer. Almost.

When Denver lost to Baltimore in the AFC title game in Manning’s first season with the Broncos, I prayed to St. Ryan Leaf. He’s the patron saint of bad football trades. I wanted Tebow back from the Jets.

Now, I’m all in. And ready to see Manning kick a little Brady ass Nov. 2 in Foxboro.

3. What happened to Nick Fury’s eye?

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He missed a Peyton Manning audible, perhaps. “Omaha! Omaha!” should never be taken lightly. Even for a super spy.

Nick Fury, the World War II army hero of Marvel Comics and The Avengers fame, took a grenade in that eye.

As part of the treatment for his eye injury, he receives infinity formula injections, which now just slow his aging. And he didn’t have be trapped in ice for decades like Captain America did. And now, the patch is a hit at parties and gives a general bad-ass aura. As if he needed the boost.

No confirmation of the Denver Broncos’ plans to inject Peyton Manning with the same formula. You know, so he can also beat Tom Brady Jr. to get to Super Bowl 75. And 76.

4. Will a heart keep beating if it’s out of a body?

(Warning: The above video shows a human beating heart during surgery. I didn’t find it tough to watch, but you might. Overall, it’s pretty miraculous. As you were.)

No wonder I never win with the horses. I’d have bet that science hadn’t discovered dinosaur skin, and that a heart wouldn’t beat out of a body.

I’d be wrong.

Most of the body’s muscles take commands from the brain. Except for the heart. The heart does it all on its own. It has a set of nerve cells that allow it to continue to beat without instruction from the brain. It’s like Notre Dame in football, doing its own thing.

A turtle heart can beat for several hours after it’s removed. kind of morbid.

But this makes sense. The heart often does things without any input from the brain, doesn’t it?

5. What’s the difference between a burglar and a thief?

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I love subtleties like this.

Apatosaurus vs. brontosaurus.

Manning vs. Brady.

Ingrid Michaelson vs. Kesha.

Hold on a sec.

OK.

Burglars are the brute force, the unrefined. The AM radio, the home phone without the answering machine. Burglars bust windows and kick down doors and wear black and shove their spoils in a sack.

Thieves are the cunning force, the criminal mind. The Sirius radio, the voice-activated Siri smartphone. Thieves crack codes and launder money and pick your pocket on a busy street without you noticing.

If you burgle real good and don’t lose your black mask and ski mask, you graduate to thievery. Wonder what that commencement speech is like.