It started with a chance meeting with a giant tortoise

I had spent my life with no particular interest in tortoises.
Today I rue this waste of time – 49 years – before things tortoisey got my attention and took hold of my imagination.


Years ago, in my early 20s, I saw a turtle of some sort cross the road in front of me while driving in a woodsy area skirting Fayetteville, Arkansas. This animal looked like an Army helmet making its very slow way across the pavement.

I stopped the pickup and slid out the door to move the critter off the road. Off he went into the grass, leaving me with no particular desire to devote myself to a tortoise or tortoises.

Much later, I had a friend who raised a bunch (is it “bunch” or is it really a herd?) of turtles, and kept these sticky-note-sized baby animals in an extra bathtub in his house. They must have been red-eared sliders, but I couldn’t say for sure.

Again, nothing led me to want to deliberately involve myself with the turtle-tortoise creature phenomenon.

I should say that, when I was a little boy – let’s say 1966 – my grandparents took me to Reptile Gardens, near Rapid City, South Dakota, and my grandfather placed me on the back of one of the giant (Galapagos) tortoises there for pictures and a slow, short mosey. This was adventurous and impressive, but no more so than riding an elephant, touching a python, feeding a reindeer, being splashed by Shamu at Sea World or petting a dolphin.

Forty years went by, and I was again in Reptile Gardens in 2006; this time with my wife, two daughters and a daughter’s boyfriend; and the same giant tortoise was there. Rides for children are no longer permitted.

We arrived early in the day, so watching the snake presentation in the open bleachers was not too hot. After touring the “dome” and laughing about a “legless lizard,” which I said I always thought was a snake, we went to the yard or court where the giant tortoises are allowed to roam freely. Sort of a giant tortoise open range.

There is a somewhat circular paved path along which some loose chains link short posts in the ground to keep the humans in their area. The tortoises are very friendly, and a couple of them were situated next to or directly on the walkway. They are not only unbothered by us two-legged types, but seem to seek a certain amount of attention and company fromus.

A gardens employee mentioned that the tortoises liked to have their necks rubbed, so I took a turn at massaging the neck of Methuselah, the tortoise I had ridden in 1966. He was hatched in 1881, the same year one of my great-grandfathers was born, and was brought to the gardens in 1956. Today, Methuselah is 128. As I treated the tortoise to the magic of my fingers, the small clutch of people in the area disbursed. I was alone in the yard with three or four tortoises. Methuselah looked directly into my eyes (and soul, it seemed) while I gently kneaded his neck. I could see more than a century in the ancient eyes that made a pleasant expression that I believe was appreciation.

I am not sure what the tortoise saw in my eyes. If he could tell, he would have known that I was becoming deeply enamored with the wonder of him and his kind. I saw no more of the gardens. I spent the rest of our time watching, massaging, and even listening to the giant tortoises. (They infrequently make a long bleat of some sort.) Not many people were in the tortoise area at the time, as there was a crocodile show going on in another part of the gardens.

I spoke with one of the staff girls there who worked with the tortoises, and I told her I envied her job.

“It must be wonderful to be with them so much.”

“It is my favorite part of the job,” she said.