RISING FROM THE ASHES—PICK AND HAMMER SONG TRADITIONS IN THE BAY AREA

Music and comedy are alive and well among geologists. An example is the Pick and Hammer Club, begun over a century ago by some of the more junior USGS geologists in the nation’s capital. The Club spawned a long tradition of musical comedy theatricals in several states to poke fun at while celebrating our science and institutions. Pick and Hammer productions in the 1960s to 1980s in the San Francisco Bay Area included some marine-flavored Pick and Anchor shows. Lyric writing often had to keep up with an annual pace of new productions. A long gap of silence since the 1980s in Menlo Park was broken in a 2010 bar-b-que Wake for the organizational passing of the Geologic Division, which included singing an old favorite, Call Me Doctor. The tradition promises to rise from the ashes soon with a Pick and Hammer event planned to include oldie songs such as Call Me Doctor, as well as newbies such as I.T. Blues, Emeritus Lament (Call My Doctor), I Got the Gonna Have an Earthquake Blues, Ballad of the SHRIMP, Lament of the SHRIMP, and Young at Heart Scientists.