I never knew I had a bucket list until I saw the movie. Not that I'm terminally ill. I'm not. And, not that I have a list of places I must go before I do kick the bucket forsaking everything else. Well, I do have a list of sorts. But, in the days after watching the movie, I slowly realized that my life has been my bucket list. I don't expect the reaper to be knocking at my door soon, but, if he dropped by a few days before the day for a chat about my life, I think I'd tell him that I've done most of the things I wanted to do. Not that I popped out of my mom's womb trailing this long list of things to do and places to go. It took me at least eight or ten years to begin the list. And, most importantly, not that I'm done with the list. I hope I'll keep crossing things off of it until the day the reaper finally says, "OK, that's it. Put down your list." But, until that day, here are some of the things off my bucket list ....... in no particular order .......

The Cradle of Humankind

Following my military service, I attended college at the University of Connecticut. My degree program would yield a BS degree, and even though I was a business major, I was required to take at least a few science courses. Today I laughingly admit to my friends that even though I have a daughter with a PhD in Microbiology and a son who is a nurse, I never could pass a course that ended in "-ology". And so it was that I found myself sitting across the desk from my anthropology professor during her office hours confessing that I could not figure out how knowing the cranial capacity of Australopithecus could possibly help me in my future career in business. She either was unusually sympathetic or just couldn't bear to see me in her class another day struggling to appear interested in a topic that obviously meant a lot to her. So, she worked out a program of independent study for me focusing on a project that I agreed I could muster enthusiasm for.

Little did I know at that time that the few weeks I did spend in her classroom contributed an inner hunger that ultimately led me to add another item to my bucket list ..... visiting the Cradle of Humankind at Sterkfontein Caves just northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. I actually traveled half way around the world to the place where the skull of Mrs. Plez, Australopithecus Africanus, had been found. Mrs. Plez was one of the early hominids (estimated age is 2.6 million years), whos cranial capacity (485 cc) had driven me to distraction in my anthropology class.

And so it was, many years later, that we found ourselves winging our way to Africa. We spent weeks travelling through six countries in southern Africa and had another one of those experiences that we will never forget. We began our African oddysey at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We journeyed through Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozabmbique, Swaziland and ended up in South Africa. There we stayed for a few days in Johannesburg. Two of what will probably be some of the most memorable events in my life happened on successive days. On November 5, 2008, Barack Obama was elected President. The next day we visited Sterkfontein Caves.
Don't we all wonder where we came from? How did we get here? Who were our ancestors? What were their lives like?

I've spent many hours talking with friends about their ancestries. These conversations usually focus on their parents' lineage; when and from where did their ancestors migrate to the United States? True to the question I asked my anthropolgy professor, I have never had any of those conversations end up in a discussion about whether humankind descended from Mrs. Plez.

Still, it is something I have often found myself thinking about. I have always been a spiritual person. I don't want to confuse "spiritual" with "religious". Religion is an element of spirituality, and I have read most of the texts - the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Tipitaka. All have perspectives on the origins of the human race. My ongoing curiosity and desire to learn drove me to Sterkfontein. I am reasonably convinced that my ancestors wandered around that area at some point in time. I just can't find the book that they wrote to tell me that.

And so there I was staring at the achaelogical site that produced Mrs. Plez. It was a moving time for me - thinking about all that had transpired between the time Mrs. Plez and her family had wandered around the very spot where I now stood until today. It also made me wonder what others thousands or millions of years hence will think about us.

Thoughts about other places I had traveled played into the entire scenario (see my post, "Guns, Germs and Steel").

Although, as with most of the other places I have traveled, I would love to return to the area around Johannesburg, I think I can check the cradle of humankind off my list. There are so many places to go and so little time available to go there.
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