Dinosaurs have never featured in my life.  I didn’t become obsessed with them as a boy, and as far as I can remember not many boys of my generation did.  I have four children and none of them were ever obsessed with dinosaurs.  If this were truly all about me we’d quit now.  But it isn’t.  It is about Berkeley.  While we may not be Jurassic Park, we have a decent number of dinosaurs around town.

For the purposes of quirky material culture, dinosaurs come in three sizes: giant, medium, and miniature.

Giant dinosaurs:  we don’t have any.  There are some great giant dinosaurs in California, but none here.  You have to go to Redwood City or Guerneville to find one.  I think.

If you find yourself in Lodi, and then find yourself at the Sinclair gas station, you will find a smallish Sinclair Dinosaur:

Nothing like the big Sinclair dinosaurs at the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York.

Medium dinosaurs:  we have some.

Miniature dinosaurs: we have some.

Start with medium, and this time let’s start with the best.  The very best.

And a couple more medium sized:

Now for the tiny dino’s, the miniatures.  These are the most popular.  Some are quite inventive, little outdoors dioramas.

There are many dinosaurs and other figures glued on the fence here on Spruce.  Somebody had a lot of fun doing this.

The woman who created the front yard on Ada has a splendidly quirky vision.  My photographs don’t do it justice, but soon it will be a Major Quirky site.  Dinosaurs feature large in her yard.

 

I somtimes wonder – is this adult quriky or toys left outside.  This is one of my favorites.  I have not gone back to see if it is still there or scattered.  I don’t want to know.

My friend was busy reading a comic book.  I was annoyed – I had been talking with him about dinosaurs and this post and he was reading a comic. No good!

But then he showed me the comic.

All is forgiven!  A quirky depiction of dinosaurs in popular culture. Very cool in fact.  I aksed him about the dinosaurs of Berkeley.  His exact words were: