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Health & Fitness

Turtle Power In Woodbury?

A summer reminiscence of turtles of the recent and distant past.

While leaving my neighborhood for a bike ride this summer, I saw an interesting bit of wildlife. I had followed a car, literally from the point that I had left my driveway, down my street and through a right turn onto a larger street... and suddenly the driver slowed, pulled over to the side, and stopped rather abruptly.

That was when I saw mega-turtle.

Its head looked to be easily the size of my foot and the shell looked to be nearly the size of a manhole cover. This was the largest turtle I had ever seen in real life.  Granted, I’m not a world traveler or a frequenter of turtle habitats, but this seemed rather large to me.

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I swung my bike wide to the left to avoid the car and gazed at TyrannoTerrapin Rex. Then I began to ponder why exactly the driver had stopped. It made no sense to me. There existed plenty of roadway to go around said shell dweller. Plus, turtles aren’t like deer or squirrels, prone to nonsensical, rapid movements. I’m doubting it was her pet (although someone , so who knows).  

Was the driver a student of turtles, some sort of scientist with an uber-cool scientific title that if I really cared enough, I would look up? Other than this is a person that perhaps enjoys watching turtles, the only other possible answer in my mind was that they thought they were going to pick up said reptile and carry it to the other side of the road.

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It seems as though many people pick turtles up on one side of the road and carry them to the other, perhaps as a means of building up some sort of human/turtle karma? I can’t imagine why.

Haven’t turtles been around longer than humans? Aren’t turtles crossing roadways a sort of wildlife version of Darwinism (especially since in this case there’s a nice culvert between the two retention ponds from and to which MegaTurtle was traversing)?

I don't hate turtles

At this point, you’re probably painting me as some sort of anti-turtle, tortoise-hating, son-of-a-well, you know the rest. That would not be truthful, though. I’m actually rather apathetic towards them. They do what they do, I do what I do. We don’t mix. We each go about our business.

Disclaimer: I DO have some animosity toward the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the money that I wasted on the movie. (Although this, too, might have been my fault because the movie's secondary title was: “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll kiss seven bucks goodbye!”)  

But for every hokey Ninja Turtle, there’s a Gamera and a...a... Okay, there’s Gamera. But a giant turtle played by a Japanese guy suffering in a rubber suit/costume makes up for all four (four?) of the Ninja Turtles, particularly when the movie is being savaged by the crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

But, as per normal, I digress. At this point, the Turtle Anti-Defamation League is undoubtedly cranking up their effective, yet glacially slow, media machine to bring my antipathy toward their brethren to the forefront and shame me into a life of turtle appreciation, perhaps by pointing out that I had never spent quality time with a terrapin.

Old school

Alas, that would not be so. Step with me, won’t you, into the “Wayback Machine” with Sherman and Dr. Peabody. We’ll travel back to the end of the last millennia in suburban Saint Louis, Missouri. It’s a warm and humid summer day (I don’t remember any other kind down there) and I had the particular task that week of riding with the Code Enforcement Officer to assist him.

This was going to be an memorable week. Gary, the code guy, was an interesting sort. Gruff exterior, but generally a good guy, albeit crotchety and set in his ways.  One downside was that chimneys were often described as “smoking like Gary,"  but he was at least considerate and kept the window open so as not to asphyxiate us both.

Or, it could have been the fact that we were in one of they city’s large fleet of de-contented baby blue 1992 Dodge Spirits. Oh, the stories I could tell about these gloriously underpowered, un-air conditioned, boxy, pieces of abysmal Detroit sheet metal.  

But, again, I digress. It’s Monday morning and by 9 it’s already so hot that the Devil is sending Hell-dwellers on a vacation to East St. Louis. My enthusiasm for leaving the air-conditioned office and riding along with Gary is somewhere near a zebra’s enthusiasm to be a lion’s snack. Alas, I must.

It all starts out quite well enough. Gary’s going through his list of code complaints and we’re talking about what changes can be made in the codes to make it easier for him to enforce, yet give him the leeway so that if someone is attempting to comply, he can have a temporary loophole. As expected, he’s giving me great insights as to how the zoning and nuisance codes are working in “the real world.”

Turtle connection

About an hour in, he sees a good sized turtle along side the road (you were undoubtedly wondering when a turtle would fit in to this story.)

It’s probably about the size of a baseball mitt... Gary pulls off to the side, gets out, and picks up the turtle and begins to carry it back to the car. Opening the rear passenger door, he deposits said reptile onto the floor, strolls back to the driver’s seat, and says, “That guy’s gonna be great for my pond! I’ll drop him off when we break for lunch.”

Sneaking a glance at my watch (because the 7 year old digital clock in the Spirit read "GRZN" o'clock.), I note that it’s two hours before we’ll have a lunch break.   Meanwhile, I have this turtle on the floor behind my seat. This is not exactly a comforting thought.

For the next two hours, I sit with my legs stretched to the firewall of the baby blue automotive beast. I have no idea whether turtles find Achilles tendons tasty, but I have no intention of finding out. The way the car is laid out, I have no way of unobtrusively ascertaining the position of our reptile friend. All I know is that if I drop anything on the floor, it’s going to stay there.

Five minutes before it’s time to break for lunch, there’s an odd odor emanating from somewhere below me. My first thought is that yet another thing on this automotive abomination is shuffling off it’s mortal coil. Then, my nose realizes the smell isn’t mechanical, but biomechanical. I know it’s not me. I’m pretty sure that if Mr. Turtle has gone off to the big pond in the sky, he wouldn’t smell like this quite yet.

“Gar,” I begin, somewhat tentatively.  “Do you, ah, smell something?”

“Oh!“ he replies. (To get the full effect, you have to hold this word about five seconds with your voice modulating in a manner resembling a roller coaster.) “I think he took a crap in the car. Do you want to check?”

“When the cows learn how to drive.”

Soon enough, he lets me out of the car outside the Municipal Centre (yes, the city was THAT pretentious.) I take a deep breath of air, which thanks to the 120+ heat index, is like being hit in the solar plexus by a sledgehammer... but at least there’s no turtle crap smell.  

Lunch went far too quickly, but Gary tells me that we’re going to have a delay to our afternoon work. This allows me to get some work done in the office and regale the other planners with another “Gar story.” Soon enough, though, the NexTel chirps and I’m back in the car with Gar.

He’s tried his best to get rid of the smell by having the interior detailed (on his own dime, by the way!)... but the odor is still pretty strong, even with all the windows open.   

While we’re on the way to yet another new subdivision, he’s chattering cheerily about how happy the turtle looks in his man-made pond in his front yard and how it’s going to keep the bugs down...he sounds as though he’s a kid again.  Other than the fact that it smells like the Ninja Turtles exploded, it’s a pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon working  ... well, other than the guy who can’t understand why he can’t keep chickens and slaughter them in his  backyard in a suburb of 80,000 people.

Soon enough, the day is over. Four more days of this are to come. Gar is promising to find some way to rectify the reptile poop smell, even volunteering to leave the windows open because, “...even a mildew smell might be better than this.” I gave a weak smile and told him not to worry.

The next day comes soon enough. I had mostly forgotten about the turtle biohazard under the seat. . . until I saw the lineup of blue 1992 Dodge Spirits just waiting to be used on city business.  Then it all came back to me...the turtle escapade.  Somehow, climbing the steps to the second floor Community Development offices seemed as difficult as climbing a mountain.

Seated behind my desk, I immediately immersed myself in work, partly in hopes that Gar would forget that I was riding with him, partly because it would be my only real chance to get things done, and partly because I knew he’d spend about an hour going through the complaint voice mail line, reading the aldermanic complaint forms, and organizing the complaints to make efficient use of the time.

Just after nine, the NexTel chirped.   The little text screen readout showed his name.  I chirped him back to let him know I had heard him.

“What’s up, pup? You ready?”  He asked.  Gary wasn’t normally an eager morning person, but this morning, it seemed as though someone had replaced his coffee and oatmeal with mud and concrete.

The smell in the car had diminished somewhat overnight...or perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I remembered or imagined it.  Gary was a little quieter than normal, but then the reason for his funk became clear.

“You remember that turtle I picked up for my pond?  Oh, of course you do, we still smell it.  Well, I came outside this morning and he was gone.  He left my pond!”  Gary was aghast.  He was truly in the throes of reptilian rejection!  

I just nodded with a grimace.  What exactly does one say when the turtle that someone saves from the road shows its gratitude by continuing to be a wayward soul?  I’m pretty sure Hallmark doesn’t make any sort of cards for that situation.

A look of steely determination crossed Gary’s face.  “So, keep your eyes out,” he asked.   “If you see another turtle, let me know and I’ll go grab him.”

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