Dinosaur on the DuPage

The DuPage River flowed through the small town of Naperville, Illinois, (it was a small town in 1966) and for an 11 year old adventuresome soon to be, “Banana Pants” it held all sorts of treasures. There seemed to be an endless supply of crawdads just ripe for the picking. Crawdad catching requires a swift finger dive carefully between your index finger and thumb, right behind the pitchers or you will pay dearly for wrong placement. Ya gotta be quick for it would seem the crawdads had an anti boy strategy one quick step to the side and latch onto the attacking fingers with the toothiest part of your pinchers at what seemed like 4ooolbs pressure per square inch…YAAAOUCH that hurts, but that seemed to make the hunt that much more adventurous to me.

Then there were the frogs and the snakes. Oh how I loved to get a glimpse of a snake then dart after it. Snakes make a particular scratchy sound as they wind through the grass, (I can still hear it now) follow that sound and you will soon be on your prey, again you gotta be quick and accurate because if you pick them up too far behind the head they are coming around to get you and even the garter snakes will latch on for all they’re worth. Garters in particular have another defense, oh, my do they release a stink, sort of a cross between a skunk and gym socks. I would suppose that smell would deter me from ever eating one. None the less one snake capture was worth five or six craw dads or fifteen to twenty bull frogs which posed no possible bodily threat. The frogs just taught you to be quick and accurate. I am sure for many reading this you are wondering, “what in the world?” John Eldredge points out so clearly in both his books and Ransomed Heart boot camps, that deep in the heart of every little boy is a desire to know, “I got what it takes to be a man”. John calls this the “cowboy ranger” stage and every boy craves this kind of adventure especially if along the way his hunting or war games demonstrate, “I got what it takes”.

Crawdads are one thing snakes another but my oh my, what would it mean to catch a dinosaur. A “Dinosaur”? Yes, from all the appearances of that tail sticking out of the mud I was convinced it was a baby stegosaurus. It had those sharp plates coming down it just like those pictured in the book my mom used to read to me The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Lampman. Reasoning there was not much difference between Cricket Creek and the DuPage river I quickly informed our gang that we were now in the presence of a baby dinosaur and all we needed to do was pull it from its muddy hiding place. Not knowing what to expect in the encounter we armed the gang with big sticks as I attempted to capture the baby stegosaurus.

I grabbed hold of that tail and started to pull for all I was worth, the reptilian tug of war had started harshly and it became immediately obvious that this dinosaur considered this a life or death struggle, one inch forward three or four back. Man this baby dino had some power to him and the battle raged for about five minutes, finally slowly I dragged enough out of the mud to see that the spikes on its back were attached to a shell of some kind.  That’s strange I reasoned maybe the baby stegosauruses keep a shell till they are bigger.

Then came the head and this thing looked mean as the devil one of the gang poked his stick toward his head and SNAP! He snapped off about a 2inch diameter stick like it was nothing. I started dragging backwards and every time that devil would try to come around on me I would drag him back for all I was worth. Once he completely cleared the mud it was obvious this was no dinosaur it was one huge snapping turtle. It was also very clear that he was none too happy about being drug from his mud hole. While some of the gang kept him at bay with the sticks and I had a hold of his tail we sent a detachment to retrieve some kind of container to take him home in.

Shortly they returned with a huge box from a grocery that backed up to the river. It was Saturday and my dad was home, surely he would marvel at this giant reptile captured by his son and friends.  This was my moment, my dad would surely acknowledge, “Son, you got what it takes to be a man.” My dad was gonna be so proud of me.

We laid the box on its side pulled the Turtle into the box and then with several keeping him at bay with sticks we flipped the box up and we now had the world’s meanest box turtle. Off we went with our trophy of boyhood bravery.

I’m not sure which shocked me more: that this wasn’t a stegosaurus or my dad’s horror when he peered into that box. “Are you boys out of your minds, that thing could bite your leg off!!!! Take him back to the river this very moment and be very careful or someone’s going to get hurt badly, and Bruce, (me) then you come straight home and I will deal with you then.” Somehow our capture just didn’t get the my dad’s admiration I thought it would.

Now at 58 I understand much of what was really going on here but poor Bruce, (me) and my father had no clue what Satan was up to. God understood and was aiding in ways that would also become evident later. Little Bruce needed to know that not only did he have what it takes to be a man, but Bruce also longed to know he was the apple of his father’s eye that Bruce would grow in favor with God and men.

Only recently have I begun to understand how God Fathers me. The supreme example is how he fathered Jesus his Son. Listen closely to God’s words at Jesus Baptism and then again at the transfiguration Matthew 3:17 & Matthew 17:5, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.” Jesus was clearly God’s favorite. That word favor as “Jesus grew in favor” is often translated; grace, and in the Old Testament the famous passage in Isaiah 61 that Jesus quoted in Luke 4, “To declare the year of the Lord’s Favor”. Jesus is declaring the Old Testament Hebrew word for grace, “ratsown”.  In other words I’m his favorite, oh by the way you are too and you may remember John was the disciple Jesus loved; have you ever wondered about that? Well John himself was the one that said “the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14. John is telling us clearly that when you are around Jesus, you know you are his favorite anything else would be disgraceful. Process that for a minute. Think about any truly Godly person you have ever known and amazingly I would bet you always feel like you are they’re favorite when you are around them.

Now going back to fathering God style, God clearly told Jesus he was His favorite but now pickup the rest of what God said at the transfiguration Mathew 17:5 “Listen to Him.” Jesus has what it takes. Looking back now I understand that my father being a General Motors executive at the time could in no way relate to a son who like my grandfather on my mother’s side (Harry Bacon) was all into whatever he could hunt or fish for and in, that world, I really did have what it takes and I was worth listening to. In present time it’s easy to forgive my dad who had about as much chance of understanding me as Rich Mullins, farmer father had of understanding a piano playing son. Whether my father understood my world or not he did do a great job of always making me feel like I was his favorite. Satan had however turned this encounter from, “son, you got what it takes” to “Bruce (me) you are a reckless hazard”. Satan knew if he could get me to back off what made my heart come alive he would begin the process of destroying and hardening my heart.

God had other plans many men throughout my life my dad and my grand fathers have fathered me in hunting and fishing and leading. God in so many ways has fathered me to know I am his favorite and when it comes to things like crawdad and snake catching or skinning a deer I got what it takes.

Back to 1966, dejected and depressed we headed for the DuPage River, then it occurred to me that the bridge was closer and it would be a lot more fun to drop the turtle from the bridge then to just put him back in the mud. After all the bridge wasn’t all that high off the water, he might even skip a little like a stone. Amazing how creative young minds work and our depression quickly disappeared at the thought of the snapper splash down. Can you even imagine our excitement as we observed way off in the distance an approaching canoe?

“Alright, here’s the plan if we drop him from the back side of the bridge the approaching canoe will never see us. I’ll hold him by the tail until just the right moment, and then bombs away, I’ll drop him right in the middle of the canoe. This will be a moment we will always remember.”  My instructions still loom in my mind as I can’t help but wonder, was this retaliation for the rejection I felt or just another exciting adventure idea.

Somewhere down the DuPage river,( I will never know this side of heaven because we ran like the little delinquents we were), a nice young couple having leapt from their canoe upon the sudden slamming of a giant snapping turtle into their tranquil afternoon voyage, must have either abandon their turtle pirated canoe forever, or somehow attempted to separate our shy stegosaurus from his new command as captain of the USS Shell Shocked..

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