ABSTRACT
The initial contact from Kimball Banks and Jon Czaplicki inviting me to join this review of the early days of the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program (IASP) some 60 years ago was not only surprising but a bit daunting. Before I could articulate a polite negative response to what I perceived as a gargantuan research project, Banks clarified that he wanted me to present an insider’s view of what life was like in the IASP field camps. He said he was looking for someone who was old enough to have experienced those times, but not so ancient as to have lost his memory—in other words, antiquity without senescence. My Nebraska-registered birth certificate documents my age, and so far, it has not been contested by any “birthers” casting aspersions on my parents or nationality. Only Hanna, my wife of 55 years, can testify as to my mental decrepitude; and her lips are sealed.
