Joe
I’m headed to Joshua Tree in a couple of weeks. That is the home of the California Desert Tortoise. I remember when I was a kid, probably elementary age, my Grandmother brought me a tortoise she picked up in the desert. She thought it would be a good idea for me to have one because at that age I was allergic to dogs and cats, almost everything in fact. Of course, it is illegal to remove a tortoise from the desert, they are protected, but that didn’t stop my Grandmother.
I named the tortoise Joe. I have no idea if he was male or female. That dian’t make a huge difference since the tortoise was 1,000 miles from home with very little chance of meeting another of his species living in my dad’s closet. Occasionally I would take Joe out of the closet and admire him, I discovered very soon that Joe was not like a dog at all, he didn’t want to play with me. I would give him some lettuce occasionally. He liked berries as I recall, but that was pretty much the extent of our play.
One summer day, not too many months after Joe came to live with us, I took him into the back yard to let him wander around in the grass and forage a bit. I set him down and left him alone for 30 minutes or so, when I came back he was gone. I remember being upset. I looked high and low but no Joe. We had painted our phone number on his shell, for just such an event. A few days later we got a call from a neighbor three blocks away enquiring if we were the owners of a “turtle.” Well, that was the end of Joe’s foraging days. Phone number or no, It was time to find him a better home. We did our best to remove the phone number from his shell and donated him to the Woodland Park Zoo.
I will never forget how thoughtful my Grandmother was, if not a tad bit misguided.