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| John Taylor | Tom Taylor |
| Pages 1, 2, 3, 4 | Pages 5, 6, 7, 8 |
I've buried too many close friends lately and I just decided it would be nice to write a living memorial for two people who have been the greatest contributors to my life, my own brothers, John and Tom Taylor. Most of you, who know me through my fossil work and this web site, never see those behind the scenes. John and Tom have been there. And without their help, encouragement and sometimes critical financial help, my fossil work and the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum would not have been possible.
John is my older brother of three years. Tom is three years younger.
John is an actor, an operatic singer, a dancer, and reads some 50 political and news sources a week. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t get much up on my brother. John is also a long-time member of MENSA. That’s an organization for smart people, one I’ve never attempted to join - for good reasons. But, we all grew up on the farm with a dad who was a cowboy. We raised cows, horses, and stupid sheep. By the way, all sheep are stupid... Being 17 miles from the nearest town, and farming in the 1950s, a farmer rancher had to be able to do everything; rebuild engines, fix flats the hard way, weld, solder, castrate hogs, shear sheep, kill and cut up beef, be a mechanic, an expert tractor driver and a good hoe-hand. Most of all, you had to work and work hard and long. John did all of that long before Tom and I. He started working in the field at age seven. Tom and I had so many allergies that we got out of a lot of work till we were 12. Then we too were expected to get out there and hit it hard. “Stau wayno!!” was about the only compliment we got from our Pa at the end of the day or at the completion of some hard task. ‘Stau wayno’ was the cowboy version of the Spanish, “Esta bueno” “or "It’s good”. And John did everything as good as Pa, unlike me who broke things, plowed in the wrong field, and let the horse runaway with him into the fence.
Our dad, whom we only called Pa, pronounced, “Paw” was an entertainer. He was a hilarious story teller and like his sons had alter egos. Our favorite was the moron with severely diminished intelligence and the crippled hands that waved limply in front of his poor pitiful walk and whose eyes rolled uselessly back in their sockets. His rendition as a hick in a pair of red cowboy long johns delivering Andy Griffith’s “What It Was, Was Football” was an immense hit at the local Lions Club shows. That and the “Wild Man of Borneo” cemented our brother John’s desire to do likewise. And he did.
Our Pa, the moron. Our brother John, like father like son. Notice the one crossed eye.
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