Talking to a friend recently I remembered I used to have a pet turtle. That's right. A real live baby turtle. I found it one spring morning on a family picnic at the beach. I saw a tiny black thing running towards the water at an amazing speed from a distance. When we finally caught up with it me and my siblings couldn't believe what we saw. The only thought in our minds was how to get it home. We put it in a tiny bucket sealed it up and hid it in the car trunk. It tried to bite me too.
Those days Ninja Turtles were all the rage. So naturally we named it Michelangelo. The coolest of them all. Although over the course of time it was called all four names. There was speculation if it could actually mutate into a six foot tall ninja if we fed it toxic stuff. Thankfully sense prevailed and nobody tried anything of the sort. Michelangelo became a celebrity among my friends and got frequent visits.
I dug up a hole in the flower bed, lined it with plastic, covered it with real sand and made it like a tiny beach complete with seashells and of course a turtle. In those pre-google, pre-wikipedia days we had to rely on encyclopedias and the school library to find out more about sea turtles. Yes. I'm that old :P. After much research we found out that they eat fish, jelly fish and pretty much everything that swims and fits their mouths. All research aside, we fed him stale bread. And not once did he complain :P
Among Michelangelo's fans were the neighbourhood crows. Maybe they thought that the tiny black thing was a baby crow which fell into water and didn't give even up after many failed attempts thanks to security features on the little private beach. In the end they eventually got to the poor guy and literally sent him to sleep with the fishes. That was a sad day and the beginning of my enmity with the crows when I swore to avenge the little guys undeserved and premature death.
Little did we consider the fact that sea turtles are an endangered species and need to be protected and helped so that they may survive and flourish in their natural habitat. Turtles can live up to a hundred years. Who knows if we hadn't caught him that day he might have pursued his genetically programmed dreams of swimming to Australia. On the other hand he might have been caught in a fisherman's net. You never know. That's life. As a wise man once said "That's how it is" :P. Nevertheless, Michelangelo gave us many happy memories and for that I dedicate this post to him. COWABUNGA dude!
