A couple of boneheads
The Author, Lee Post (Boneman)
and friend, Orca
As a kid I was a junkie, a natural history junkie. I was passionate about the natural
world and couldn't get enough of it. I collected everything related to that world I
could get my hands on -- bugs, birds, feathers, rocks, shells, butterflies, and
especially bones. These were labeled and displayed on the walls of my
room until it looked like the aftermath of a bomb going off in a natural
history museum storage room.

I spent several formative years on the East Coast where an ultimate treat was
finding a new specimen or visiting a natural history museum. Of special
interest was any exhibits having to do with bones, whether a full
dinosaur skeleton or a single human bone.

Eventually my family moved back to Alaska where I finished school and became a
bicycle mechanic and eventually moved to the small town of Homer, Alaska
where I became a bookseller. Homer had a great small natural history
museum (The Pratt Museum) run by an inspiring director and a
wonderful crew of staff and volunteers. There I articulated a
17-foot Beaked Whale the staff had collected and cleaned.
This led to fifteen years of building up the osteology
collection at the museum by salvaging, preparing,
and often articulating animal skeletons.

In the mid 90's came a three year high school/museum collaborative project in
which I worked with high school students on first articulating a 41-foot Sperm
Whale skeleton, then half a dozen other skeletons. Since that project, the
focus has been working mostly with schools and students and creating
written manuals that can help others who might want to do similar
projects. One teacher suggested that I was like the Pied Piper of
bones, leaving a trail of kids who all wanted to do
another skeleton project.

Today, I still live in Homer, Alaska, with my companion, Mary, who is my
computer-graphic whiz and web site designer (so if you have any complaints about this site
or how the manuals look you can complain to her). I still sell books in partnership with my
sister, Sue Post, and our friend Jenny Stroyek, at the Homer Bookstore.
That's  my part-time  day-job, but my real  passion is bone building.
Below are photos of my room when I was a kid. Having all that great stuff was
a sure-fired way to keep little sisters out of there.
Click on photos to get a better look.
The Boneman.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
URL:  http://www.theboneman.com
Boneman
Last Update: September 1, 2009

copyright 2005 by Lee Post
illustrations by Lee post
site created and maintained by
Merry Web Designs
copyright 2005
Solution Graphics
THEN
NOW
Me in my kayaking uniform-cooking
wild mussels.
MY BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER, KRISSY
My Mary who keeps my
world going smoothly.
Our igloo.
Life inside the igloo.
What we get to see from the front
door of our igloo.
Since I'm not fortunate enough to
survive in Homer Alaska just on
bone work --  this is the scene of my
Day Job.
It is probably the longest running
new books-Bookstore in Alaska.
I started working in it in 1979.
MY DAY-TIME JOB, THE HOMER BOOKSTORE
It really wasn't that big --  she is
holding it close to the camera.
The view I see from behind the
counte.r
Looking towards the back of the
store, as you walk in through the
front door.
SURROUNDING AREA
This is a kayaker's view of the end of
the spit.
Homer is known for it's spectacular
scenery - it's halibut fishing - it's
artists and authors and for this 4 mile
long sliver of property that sticks out
into the bay ( The Homer Spit).
My summer passion is kayaking. This
is the type of scenery on the other side
of the bay.
Sometimes I kayak before it is
summer - especially on days that look
like this.
A short hike on the other side of the
bay gets you to this view.
The Homer Harbor on a nice
day in the winter.
A view of the bay from the road past town.
A Homer beach on a typical summer
day ( when the sun is out ). A sunny
summer is very atypical however.
We got a couple of them last year.
FAVORITE PAST-TIME AND FAVORITE FRIENDS
It's that boneman again doing what he
most loves doing - other then working
with bones. Relaxing on a beach with
favorite friends during a kayak tri.p
The bay is very rich in marine life from
whales to sea otters to seals to sea
lions  to birds to inter-tidal life.
And it's off to another beach and
another part of the bay.
It's tough holding that beach down
-but someone has to do it. These are
super teachers and their beautiful
daughter on a kayak trip.
LOCAL WILDLIFE
An eagle with Mt Augustine - an
active volcano in the background.
The "Eagle Lady "  Jean Keene
feeds the wild eagles for a period of time each
winter - attracting sometimes several hundred
eagles to the end of the spit.
Jean Keene passed away this winter of 2009.
She shall  be missed.
As the snow in the hills gets deeper
and deeper- Many moose move into
town. Some stay and have their
calves here  in the spring.
This is in my front yard which is in a
suburban neighborhood  in town.
Eagles allow photographers to get
quite close. . . .
Harbor seals are common.
Sea Otters wrap themselves in kelp
while they sleep to keep from drifting
away. The game is to sneak right by
them in a kayak without waking them.
Sometimes it works.
. . . .combined with ever changing
winter lighting - it is a photographers
mecca for eagle photos.
Another volcano we can see from the
Homer area.  Mt Illiamna with some sea
otters in front of it on an early spring
day from the kayak.
The bay has several hundred sea otters
which sometimes congregate near the
base of the spit in the winter - feeding
and resting on ice floes.
Yes I'll take your picture too.
Occasionally some of my correspondents become curious about my world and often request pictures. For
any of you who may also be similarly curious, these are snapshots of my world and I'm sticking to it.
And for the friends of Carol and Wally ~ who could scarcely believe there was such a thing as a baculum--- let
alone that there was such a thing as a "Boneman"----here is an illustration of a walrus baculum
Achieve a Dynamic Presence on the Internet

Websites by Merry Web Designs

www.merrywebdesigns.com