In another life, almost another century, I promised stories about the free range Mississippi Red Eared Sliders we had for several years when the youngest boys were smaller. They were fascinating pets; in various ways we inherited a total of five of them, mostly from families whose kids had outgrown them. If you were more than a twinkle in your daddy's eye in the middle-ish part of the 20th century, you'll remember these turtles. They arrived at the pet shops by the thousands, each just a little bigger than a silver dollar. Remember silver dollars? Back before the Canadian Loonie, they really were made of silver, and worth a dollar. Now the silver in them alone is worth about twenty bucks.
They're pretty typical turtles, green with yellow bellies marked with more green. Their distinguishing feature is a slash of red in the region of each eye, slanting like Alice Cooper's eye makeup, toward the back of their heads. Related to painted turtles. If they manage to survive, they live a long time. Mine, sadly, didn't. Purchased with my first babysitting money at the age of 12, they lived in a little plastic pond about a foot in diameter, with a ramp leading to an island in the centre where they could come out of the water to bask under a plastic palm tree about six inches tall. I took them outside one fall day to enjoy the sun, and forgot to bring them in that night. When I remembered them in a panic the next morning, before before starting for school in my bulky new sweater and warm wooly tights, they and the water in their tropical paradise were frozen into a solid block of ice. Something native to Mississippi doesn't survive that kind of abuse. I was inconsolable; cried all the way to school.
After the trauma of being an accidental murderer at the age of 12, I didn't expect to ever have turtles in my life again. Life is full uf surprises.
