Using my GPS (which my brother had gotten me as either a Christmas gift or a Birthday gift a couple of years ago), we found the place with relative ease. Finding parking might prove a bit trickier, and we certainly were not students, or anything. So, if it required parking permits or something, we might be in trouble.
But we found a parking lot that did not have too many people, and which had plenty of spaces, and parked in the farthest corner, a bit hidden. We just hoped that nobody would ticket, or even worse, tow, the car in our absence. Really, we just wanted the car to be there, at the very least, when we got back.
Then, we got out, and walked to the main entrance of the Bio-Tech Building, where my grandfather used to work.
It looked exactly as I remembered it. Even as big as I remembered it, and that is a bit unusual, to see the same thing looking as big as you remember it in childhood. The front steps to the building! I used to run up the steps as a child. One time, I rather foolishly jumped off the top wall, which is pretty high. I think it was just one of those things, you know? You just kind of make a dare with yourself, in your own head, just to prove you can do it. And I did it. And it hurt, for that matter. I remember that, too.
The place that I am talking about is SUNY Orange (Orange County Community College). And my grandfather used to work there. Which meant that my brother and I used to go there on occasion, when he had some business there. My grandparents would take us to Middletown. Sometimes, we would pick my grandfather up from work there. Sometimes, he had other business to attend to.
And I remember this mastodon specifically from those days, when I was just a little kid brimming with energy. I loved to run up those stairs outside, and run to the bones of the mastodon, although I am quite sure that they did not have a glass display back then. I guess I was also too young to read, because I don't remember the mastodon actually having a name, either. But it does. The name is Sugar.
It was one of the most memorable things from that part of my childhood, and I had long wanted to go back and pay the old mastodon a visit, assuming it was still there. I looked it up earlier this year, and found out that not only was it still there, but that Orange County, New York, actually had a few such mastodon bone relics around. That it is, in fact, rather a hotbed of such artifacts.
Learn something new everyday.
We had lunch from a vendor by the exit, and sat at a table right by the mastadon display, and then took a look around the campus. My brother remembered it better than me, probably because he has a few years on me, and so retained a better memory, being just a bit older. The vendor that we had bought the lunch from had told us all of this, and recommended what to visit on this day. There is a mansion on the campus, as well as stables. It is a nice campus, leafy and very green still on this fairly early, sunny autumn day. There were also glimpses of some of the surrounding foothills. A nice location for a college campus.
It was nice, but the highlight for me will likely always be the mastodon. And again, I found out that this region of New York was apparently a veritable gold mine for mastodon relics and such. More such mastodon bones have been found in Orange County than anywhere else in the Northeast.
This particular mastodon, Sugar, was al arge male species that died in a bog. It may have died of natural causes, or it may have been killed by man - it is not certain. It dates back from 7685BC to 8135BC. The remains were discovered in May of 1972 on the border of Chester and Warwick. What makes this particular mastodon truly unique, is that it has a tusk on its lower jaw, which is not typical at all of North American mastadons, but more common for the Asiatic species. This information was taken largely from the following webpage: "Welcome to the Virtual Tour of SUNY Orange" (http://www.sunyorange.edu/virtual/mastodon.html)
South Street, looking down from nearby SUNY Orange.
Below are the links that I found useful for finding out more about mastodon relics in Orange County. The one specific to "Sugar the Mastadon", which is still no display in the Bio-Tech Building at SUNY Orange, is below:
http://www.sunyorange.edu/virtual/mastodon.html
Here are some other related links that may prove useful:
http://home.roadrunner.com/~montghistory/The%20Mastodons%20of%20Orange%20County%20042809.pdf
http://www.thecountysbest.com/sugarthemastodon/index.html
Sugar Still Needs GOSHEN - A mastodon which roamed Orange County about 10,000 years ago ... the new bio-medical building at Orange County Community College, Middletown. ...Orange County Chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1982&dat=19741028&id=sVNRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qzMNAAAAIBAJ&pg=3095,5666134
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