Two articles online brought an interesting slice of life to kids with rocks and minerals in their pockets and in their minds. Lots of children become interested in rocks and minerals, like any other popular natural science, kids all over have the thoughts of becoming a geologist. Fewer kids have the thoughts of becoming professional dealers of minerals, rocks and fossils. These two articles give a look into two different types of kids, one who became a very successful mineral dealer and another who became a professional geologist.
Rosie Cima did a wonderful write up about mineral dealer Robert Lavinsky, or, Dr. Lavinsky, as we find out in the article found on the Priceonomics website, The Very Model of a Modern Mineral Dealer. In this article we get a picture of Robert Lavinsky, owner of The Arkenstone, from boyhood facination with rocks and minerals, into college, selling minerals became a main focus of his life, trumping his doctorate degree in Molecular Genetics.
This is the type of kid who is mixed with a passion for sales and an equal passion for collecting. Like this bit from the article shows
At some point during the interview, when asked why the market has grown as rapidly as it has, he attributes a lot of it to people realizing that they could own minerals in the first place. Because who wouldn’t want to?
“I can have these amazing, beautiful objects that are tens of millions of years old in my house!” he shouts. He certainly does.
Stibnite specimen, photo from irocks.com
On the other hand, we have children who don’t have the same drive for sales. With those kids with rocks in their pockets we have this great guest blog on the AGU blogosphere, this writer, Evelyn Mervine, on her Georneys site, had her mother submit a guest article on what it was like to grow up nurturing a future geologist.
Barbara Mervine has a great viewpoint on raising a young geologist, as you can see in this quote.
Geologists are often born, not made. Shortly after birth, the parents of a born geologist notice something different about their child. Some parents try to interest their young child in other subjects, such as birds or stamp collecting. However, it is best to just give up and accept that your child is different.
Barbara has several words of wisdom, what to expect when raising a future geologist, like this one…
The parent of the geologist dreads the day that the child becomes a teenager and begins learning to drive. That is because now the child’s habit of looking for rocks while in the car becomes looking for rocks while driving a car. Rock cuts on highways are a danger that all parents of geologists should be aware of. For example, Evelyn was once traveling with a group of geologists from MIT when they stopped the van along the side of a major highway. All the geologists piled out to go look at a rock cut. The police man who gave them tickets for illegal stopping on a highway was not impressed with their excuse that millions of years of history was revealed right there before his eyes. He pointed out that hundreds of cars were right there going by at high speeds. Obviously, the police man did not have a brother or sister who was a born geologist.
Both articles are well worth checking out
Rosie Cima’s Priceonomics article The Very Model of a Modern Mineral Dealer —> http://priceonomics.com/the-very-model-of-a-modern-mineral-dealer
Barbara Mervine’s Guest Post on Georneys Blog for AGU The Care and Feeding of a Geologist —> http://blogs.agu.org/georneys/2011/10/12/the-care-and-feeding-of-a-geologist-a-guest-post-by-barbara-mervine/