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2008-06-05 - 5:45 p.m. I think sometimes about an essay by David James Duncan, "Birdwatching as a Blood Sport." In it he tells how, walking on a beach, he approached a large western-type grebe -- he knew the species, I'm the one who has forgotten. In any event, the grebe sat waiting, patiently, with a glow in its eye, scaring him with its almost sinister patience, as if it were lying in wait. And so then he walked away, forgetting or perhaps not knowing yet that this species cannot walk and it waited for him to put it back in the water. Later in the essay is a terrifying scene where he risks life and limb on a busy highway to save a screech owl. This week, perhaps, I've thought of this essay more than usual, because of the turtle. One day, D. and I drove down a rural highway, and there was a woman, with a child, and a rolling suitcase, walking determinedly beside the road. It looked like drama, and if there's one thing we don't need in this life, it's more drama. I may have even thought, and it isn't to my credit, "Poor white trash." We both assumed, as one does, that there was a man in the picture, and as man is the most dangerous of animals, we didn't want to be involved. The next day, or the day after, on the same highway, we saw a red-eared turtle crossing the road. D. pulled over without discussion and hurried to pick up the turtle and put it out of harm's way. And if we had it to do over a hundred times, we'd make the same choice every time. Once, in May 1982, I was driving in the mountains in Arkansas, and there were dozens, then hundreds, of box turtles crossing the road. There were too many to stop, and, although I swerved as much as I dared on the curving roads semi-busy with the spring tourists, I hit and ran over three of them. I cringed every time I heard that crunch. I wonder if there are still so many migrating turtles, in Arkansas or anywhere. If there's a moral to this story, I don't know what it is. Life is a blood sport.
All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford
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