Deep in time, in the unimaginably diverse Tropical Rainforests that covered the world, a world bursting with life in the wake of the extinction of the Dinosaurs, strange creatures were evolving almost beyond belief.  One of these was Coryphodon.
     Built like a hippo or hornless rhino with short, strong legs and a wide body, eating leaves and weighing perhaps half a ton at seven and a half feet long, she was one of the first giant mammals, though not the first, in an era where large mammals were emerging from an immense diversity of Rainforest creatures.
     Giant snakes and especially crocodiles thrived.
     According to Wikipedia, Coryphodon was slow, with little in the way of defenses since most known predators seem to have been significantly smaller.

     Was it really?
          I wonder.

     Certainly there were crocodiles, and I would imagine some got fairly big, since elsewhere in the world lived the largest snake ever, Titanaboa, to the south in South America.

     Looking at the skeleton pictured in Wikipedia, Coryphodon had short, fairly strong, fairly widely spaced legs, a solid, strong head and a strong neck- I imagine it would have been very hard for a crocodile to drag into the water.

     Might she be adapted to resisting attack from crocodiles?

     A fantastic animal from a fantastic era- the Paleocene/Eocene, all thirty million years of it, and just starting to blossom when Coryphodon came along.  What a world we live in!

          David S. Annderson

For more, visit my main page at sites.google.com/sites/davidannfreestories, or just search "Davidannfreestories", all one word.

a chess mystery: anyone have an answer?

     Although I am very bad at it, I am interested in the game of chess- but great stories even more.  Chess history is filled with great stories, interesting characters, drama, great creativity, and mystery.  It is in search of an answer to a mystery that I am writing this entry.  My favorite chess book is called The Best In Chess, edited by the great chess writer I. A. Horowitz, since it is filled with great chess-themed stories, including some of the best fiction, humor and suspense I have ever read..  One of them, a nonfiction story called Visiting Fireman, features a mysterious chessplayer at a 1953 Paris chess club.
     His feat against a strong opponent seems comparable to a Bobby Fisher or Garry Kasparov.
     I wonder if it could have been Botvinnik??  Mikhail Botvinnik was world chess champion, but his performance in two tournaments in '51 and '52 were dissappointing.  He had spent '48 through '51 working on his Ph.D. in electronics.  The Soviet chess championship, featuring most of the best in the world (they love chess in Russia!!!), the chess olympiad and the defense of his championship were coming up, and he would have been looking to improve his game.  Knowing there was a great grandmaster in town, he must have sought out that chess club in Paris- apparently THE place to go as the legendary Cafe de la Regence was being renovated.  He would have been in disguise so the Soviet authorities didn't know he was there.  The tournament to determine the challenger was held in nearby Zurich, Switzerland, and Botvinnik may have been allowed to go to observe his future opponent.  Or there may have been another occasion.
          Is it possible Botvinnik could have been in Paris in 1953?
          This seems the best explination for this true story.
          Please comment if you have a clue.
          Sincerely,
               David S. Annderson

        Awww, cute... a bear that's gonna eat me!

     Just an observation, but isn't it odd that bears can be so cute and yet they can eat you?  Though from what I hear, they prefer to just chase us up a tree!

     Not that it would be so bad to be eaten, if I were eaten by someone nice... not a bad way to go- so I would still take a chance to see a cute, man-eating bear!
     It would be the experience of a lifetime!

     And if I was yummy, oh well- they're just puppy-dogs as big as a car, right?

     As long as YOU don't get eaten!

     just a few thoughts.

          David S. Annderson

For more from me, go to my main website at sites.google.com/sites/davidannfreestories, or just google "davidannfreestories", all one word.

     Have fun!

     You walk through a forest.  Life surrounds you.  You are immersed in it.

     Huge Trees are all around.  Trees wider than a doorway across the trunk, tall as ten one-story houses.  Trees tall as 20 houses that a family of bears can hide behind.  Trees a small cabin can hide behind.

     The Trees talk to each other, through the roots and through the air by smell, as they create the forest out of thin air, dirt, water and sunshine.  Millions upon millions of tiny animals far smaller than ants care for the soil, providing for the Trees.  Green is everywhere, on the ground and on the mossy bark of the Trees.
     The forest canopy is lush, beautifully ragged and goes on, seemingly forever.

     And you can visit.

     For real!

     For these are our real Forests.  And the Trees really do send smell-messages to each other, and the tiny soil animals- Nematodes, 'Water Bears', Rotifers- really exist.

     Welcome to the Old-Growth Temperate Rainforest.

     Welcome to the real world- the REAL real world.

     Come see how much of this is all around us, on a smaller scale, right in our own backyards.
        See the forests we have saved, and how we are doing more every year.
     See what life is REALLY like.

     For all of this and more, read Big Trees, Epic Life: Life in the Temperate Rainforest, free to view or download as a text (txt) file on my website, sites.google.com/sites/davidannfreestories, or just google "davidannfreestories', all one word.

     And search 'Temperate Rainforests' for more on the Internet- especially pictures.
          Gorgeous pictures!

     Have fun!
          David S. Annderson

     Ice.  Snow.  Eternal winter, as far as the eye can see.
        It comes, it goes.
     New warmth.  New life.  Life, from out of the Sea, fills a world.
     The Ice Ages, filling a Continent bigger than Asia, have come to an end.  Life, having risen from the Sea, fills a world like never before.
     Bizarre Trees fill lush Forests.  Amphibians like salamander crocodiles as big as a football player slip easily between water and land.
     Air-breathing Fish as big as a basketball player lurk at the edge of the water like crocodiles, wary of swamp beasts that would swallow them in one gulp, right from the edge.
     Still more fantastic beasts are out there, if you know how to look for them.

     This world is real, and it is ours.
     This is our world, before the Dinosaurs.

     For 160 million years, these and many other beasts roamed the Earth, until 200 million years ago a catastrophe of unimaginable perportions allows an upstart group, the Dinosaurs, to take over.
     It was the first great age of land life, a mere 50 million years after Fish with jaws first became common in the Sea and Rivers.
        It was what I call the Age of Pangaea.

     For more, view or download my story Before the Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Pangaea for free as a text (.txt) file on my website at sites.google.com/sites/davidannfreestories.com, or if you can't find it, google 'davidannfreestories', all one word.  The stories are listed on the left.  Feel free to share these stories with anyone!

          And stay tuned.  There's more, much more.

                    David S. Annderson

     Ever wanted to fly, through a world of enchanted forests and mysterious mansions?
     Ever wanted to see the REAL Enchanted Forests, get to know every Tree, Trees beyond imagining?
     Or visit the very real Age BEFORE the Dinosaurs, where strange bisonlike beasts with tusks and parrotlike beaks roam and great frog crocodiles lurk in the water?
     I do.
     That's why I wrote these worlds into books, from dreams or real life, and am giving them away- for free.
     To you.
     In text (.txt) files, to download and distribute to anyone.

     My (pen) name is David S. Annderson, with 2 n's, and my site is sites.google.com/sites/davidannfreestories.com, or just google 'davidannfreestories', all one word.
     And welcome!  Do have fun.
        For I have!
     When I was a kid, me and my friends would be in our own world, driven by wild dreams.  My Grandpa would show us the real Forest, the Enchanted Forest, just outside his house- and on the edge of a town on the edge of the city, a magical place hiding out there and surrounding us.  We could see wonder everywhere.
     I wanted the rest of you to experience all that, so I began writing.
         Then the dreams came.
     I have always had fantastic dreams- more to the point, I often REMEMBER them, vividly.  But these dreams were just BEGGING to be told.  With a lot of practice and multiple drafts on my first novel, I became better and better- just like you will, if you choose to.  Hopefully I am good enough to take you through something of what I experienced!
     And I daydreamed of real worlds, far off or long ago- and yet still a very real part of our own world.
        Especially those Forests and Age before the Dinosaurs which I told you about.
     I don't know what else to say about what it's like to write my stories, but I will take you through the things I have wrote about, one by one.
            And don't forget to look for the wonder and magic all around you, for it's there- it's there!
                    David S. Annderson