A Dinosaur in the Garden

[Kinman]

The only turtles we have here in Eastern Washington are the red eared sliders. Everyone I ever knew used to say that they were not fit to eat, I've never made a point of eating something just to see if it were edible. Like the common Coot I do not find them tasty, like our local "sucker" or "squawfish" actually a member of the Pike Minnow family. The meat is soft and mushy reminding me of the elementary school paste. Doesn't taste bad, just about consistency. Carp is good, especially if kept live in a tank to flush out. I've watched Germans force feed a carp just like a goose to improve the flavor.
I've never seen a land tortoise in this area, rattlesnakes are not common. A buddy brought a small box tortoise home from a trip to Indiana that was wandering across the highway. He was telling us that one day he decided to give the little guy some time in the deep grass and weeds of his backyard while he was sitting in the sun reading a good book. He said after awhile he looked for the tortoise and couldn't find it, looked everywhere to no avail, we have never given up on the fact that heres a guy that let a tortoise escape. It must have been a great book...

 

[jem102]

I think the poorest we ever were was back in '56, we was so poor all I got for Christmas was fresh library books. We ate meat once a week, Dad would bring home a pound of hamburger. Mom would cut up an onion, toss in the burger and a big ole can of pork an beans, she called it "slum gulligan". The shack we lived in was built onto the existing roof of a large tenement building, the floor was so sloped all my toy horse and cowboys had to be going uphill or downhill or they fell over. I would roll a marble up the floor and shoot it on the way down, like Sundance when I started school I couldn't let a marble quit rolling or I couldn't hit it.
The reason I started this stuff was that snapper, the owner of the tenement had a ole coon hound named Comanche, he had been a hell of a hunter in his day but for now was relegated to the back yard of the man's property to ward off rats that swam the big river at the back of the property, turtles and such. The man had killed a huge snapper and left his shell out to dry for some reason or the other. Ole Comanche and me were best of friends, I was just small enough at five to barely fit inside that big ole shell. I got to thinking that if Comanche wouldn't mind I could tie a rope onto his collar and sit inside this shell so he could then haul me around. I had me a hell of a good time with that ole dog and the shell, he was more than just obliging and would really get up and go with me a flying along behind, it was great fun...when your a kid you really don't know your poor, in a way its like being stupid.

Thank you for this story. There aren't many of us remaining that will have a tear well up from similar remembrances...

 

[Kinman]

We were just kids brother, doing the best we could to beat old man boredom. I remember life out farm house my dad rented that our nearest neighbors were just visible if you went outside and squinted up our vision...you could just make out their yard/farm light, must have been over three miles away...we never met anyone out there. I remember being so bored as a five year old kid that I played with a dead cat for three days, finally got tired of poking it with this and that, I jumped on the bloated carcasss and the dead cat let out a roooooowwwwlllll as the air from the gases went through its voice box....I ran for the house yelling "Momma, Momma."

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

I used to raise and release into to parks box turtles in a large pen my Dad made. They were surprising escape artists. One escapee was threatened by one of my neighbors who wanted to kill it with a hammer. She was hell bent on killing it. The turtle was rescued and lived to spawn. She ended up killing her husband with a poisoned shake.