A handmade sign, stuck in the front lawn, makes the search easier. After greeting his guests, he tosses the odd collection into the trunk of his cluttered compact car. Every available moment is spent searching northern Illinois rock quarries, abandoned strip mines and roadcuts for specimens. And unlike some collectors, Cesario freely shares his knowledge with anyone who shows an interest.
Not Tom. Wittry is one of the five adults and four youths who join Cesario this day. The destination? According to Cesario, getting an early start is important because bright sun can cause unwanted shadows. So is the right gear. Screwdrivers are used to gently pry fossils from their surroundings. Coffee cans are used for collecting. Toilet paper serves a dual purpose: wrapping fragile fossil finds and, well, the obvious.
What you want is a cloudy day. Cesario knows from experience. He has spent most of his life hunting, studying and classifying thousands of brachiopods, trilobites and crinoids, to mention a few. These fossils, primarily imprints in rocks of ancient small sea life though some evidence of mastodons also may be found , are abundant in northern Illinois because million years ago this region was submerged under a warm shallow sea.
Over time, it fossilized. At first he stumbled upon fossils in the back lots surrounding his childhood Chicago home. By the time he was 13, he was visiting creek beds and rock quarries in the Chicago area. Some people would look at it and think, yeah, nice. He has acquired an impressive library on fossils, as well. Self-taught, like many avid amateurs, he is driven by the thrill of discovery. And that drive intensified as his knowledge of the subject deepened. Through numerous amateur networks, Cesario trades fossils with people all over the world.
But selling is not what fossil collecting is about. Trading is. After work each day, Cesario retreats to the cloistered sanctity of what a tongue-in-cheek sign labels the Cesario Museum of Paleontology: his basement. There, he carefully categorizes each shark tooth, each brachiopod, each trilobite with undying enthusiasm. Most of his bulging collection is housed in a wall of homemade wooden drawers.
