(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator
George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere
in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Not all turtles get rides on
motorcycles” was originally published in the Sept. 6, 1990 edition of The Monroe Journal in
Monroeville, Ala.)
A few days back, I headed up toward one of my favorite
places of relaxation. The early morning breezes were refreshing as I sped along
on my motorcycle.
I was doing what I do best; I was starting my complete day
of doing nothing but wandering. My spouse wasn’t going to be home for lunch, so
I got together a few things and hit the road.
As I sped along up Highway 41, toward the Franklin area, I
spotted a large round object up the road ahead of me. As I drew closer, I saw
that the round object was a quite large, hard-shell turtle. How this turtle had
managed to survive there in the middle of the highway, I’ll never know.
Each time a truck or automobile came by, the turtle would
draw its head inside its shell; it was rather slowly making its way across the
wide roadway. I knew that it would be just a matter of time before someone came
along and decided to run over this old, slow-moving warrior.
I stopped my motorcycle and got off. I was going to pick the
turtle up and place it in the ditch across the road, where I thought it was
headed. As I picked up the turtle, it drew its head once again inside its
shell.
“What the heck,” I thought. “I’ll just carry this old
gentleman with me for a while. I know that he has never ridden a motorcycle,
and this will give the old turtle a chance to see some of the countryside.”
I placed the turtle on the fuel tank in front of me. I
positioned its head toward the handlebars just in case he decided to bite a
slice out of my leg with his stout jaws. My legs kept the turtle from falling
off as we sped up the road toward Franklin. The noise and perhaps the motion of
the motorcycle helped me to haul the old warrior. As the motorcycle began to
move, the old fellow pulled his head once again inside his shell.
As we rode along, I could feel the turtle’s feet bracing
against my legs. I could feel the tension in the legs; I wondered what
thoughts, if any, were going through the mind of the old turtle.
As we sped northward, several people passing us almost fell
out of their automobiles, looking to see what object I was holding before me on
the fuel tank of the motorcycle. I turned left after passing the store in
Franklin, deciding to carry my new friend to my favorite spot atop Nancy
Mountain. Here, if all went well, I would share some of my lunch with the
turtle.
I stopped the motorcycle in front of the pavilion and lifted
the turtle off the fuel tank. I placed my friend on the concrete floor,
deciding to see just what was going to take place after his motorcycle ride. I
waited for several minutes before I saw a large, ugly head slowly moving out
from under the shell. I had placed some cracker crumbs in front of the shell
before the head came out. I was going to see if he would eat the crumbs or just
crawl off.
Three minutes passed, and nothing happened. I placed a
portion of a tasty sardine there beside the cracker crumbs. I noticed movement
as the turtle slowly eased its way toward the sardine. The lower jaw of the turtle
moved, and before I realized it, a portion of the sardine disappeared. Then the
remaining portion disappeared also.
I continued to watch to see if the turtle was going to eat
the cracker crumbs. Slowly the head moved this way and that; it seemed to be
looking for more sardines. Then I saw a cracker crumb picked up by the turtle;
then another. The old fellow was fast losing his manners. It seemed that he was
ready now to eat anything.
Twice more I placed chunks of sardine and crackers on the
concrete, each time placing them farther away from the turtle than before. Each
time the turtle sought out the food and ate every mouthful. I think that if I
had kept feeding the old rascal, he would have gotten on my motorcycle by
himself if he had thought food was there.
For a time, I played with the turtle. I placed some salted
peanuts on the floor before him. He seemed disappointed that the peanuts
weren’t saltines or crackers. I then placed several small pebbles in front of
him. This time he totally ignored the pebbles, as if saying, “I’m not that
dumb.” I tried to fool him with a couple of small leaves; these, too, he
ignored.
I then carried him over to the edge of the floor. I was
going to see if he would crawl off the side. The ground was about five inches
below the surface of the floor. He would not take the chance. I suppose he
thought he might flip over and land on his back; he would not chance it. I
picked him up and carried him to the far side of the pavilion where the floor
was almost level with the ground. He calmly crawled off the concrete and down
to the leaves and grass. I guessed that he was saying to himself that this was
no step for a stepper.
The old turtle didn’t seem eager to depart from my company, but
the evening had passed rather quickly and I had to be getting toward home. I
again picked up the old fellow and carried him deep into the thick underbrush. A
final pat on the shell and I placed him under a heavy brush top. He was just
another turtle, but I’ll bet my best pair of britches that he was the only
hard-shelled turtle in Monroe County to ever ride a motorcycle.
(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and
Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime
resident of Monroeville, he was born on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County and
served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from 1964 to
1987. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and
all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the
microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville.
Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship
purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)
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