When I was five years old my parents built a cottage on a small, spring-fed lack in Wisconsin; my parents kept this cottage for twelve years. We moved into the cottage on Memorial Day and we moved back to the city on Labor Day. The day we moved into the cottage my parents purchased three ducklings and two baby turtles (not snapping turtles). Our (the children’s) charge was to care for these babies until they were old enough to be in the lake on their own. We knew when the ducklings were ready to be on their own – they stopped following us around the yard and refused to come out of the lake when we did. The turtles were more difficult to understand as to how large they had to be before we would finally turn them loose into the wilds of the lake – we were guided more by ‘turtle-temperament’ than by ‘turtle-size.’
A few days ago I was watching a ‘you-tube’ video of folks caring for endangered sea turtles. The narrator noted that a great deal of research has been done on sea-turtle blood. Scientists, I discovered, are quite interested in sea-turtle blood. Turtles…You Say? Yes indeed, Turtles. It seems that sea turtles don’t suffer from arteriosclerosis in old age. There seems to be a special property of turtle blood that prevents the arteries from hardening. From the little I have learned – less than a thimble full of knowledge at this time – it seems as if there continue to be two camps; those who are sure and those who are doubters (as far as I my thimble full of knowledge tells me no one disputes the possibility outright).
There is also information that perhaps the turtle’s blood vessels stay in good shape because of the turtles’ life-style. Turtles rarely pass up the opportunity to relax – swim slowly or sit on a log during a sunny day. I have not heard of two turtles getting together with the idea of promoting anything. As far as I know, no turtle has ever swum around – or laid around – complaining that the short-term profits weren’t enough. I am sure that turtles do not spend many hours a day and night attempting to perfect stuff that destroys entire cities (or islands) – the atomic-death of many islands would also lead to the sterility, if not death, of the turtles (and turtles, as we all know are wise creatures).
In the many years I was hanging around turtles I never heard one say ‘We are going to roll this program out!’ I have never hear them say: ‘Get Real!’ or ‘Some day you will have to live in the real world!’ As far as I know turtles are not distracted by, nor obsessed, with technology – no two sea turtles have collided because one, or both, were distracted by their cell-phones.
In spite of their thousands of years of not having access to whatever the current trend was/is they continue to know how to live a stress-free life. Turtles, by their admirable habits, are able to get to the hard core of life – which might be why their arteries continue to be soft.
Now, gentle reader, it might be worth noting that traditionally the Chinese do not appear to suffer from arteriosclerosis nearly as much as we Westerners do – and many Chinese continue to be heavy eaters of Turtles. Turtles…You Say? Yup, Turtles.
Perhaps if we all spent more time swimming slowly and deeply, and spent more time sunning ourselves while lounging on logs and spent more time savoring turtle soup complemented by a nice red wine then we too might become as turtles – hard where necessary and soft where necessary.
