Why did the Turtle Cross the Road?
Last week I was headed to the grocery store on a narrow country road near my home, when I saw something in the middle of the road. I recognized it as a large turtle, probably close to one foot in diameter. No one was behind me, so I braked, put on my hazard lights, and jumped out of the car, intending to move the turtle off the road. When I got to the turtle, I realized it was in fact a snapping turtle and he(?) wasn’t too interested in my attempts to pick him up to get him off the road. His neck whipped around, and he tried to snap at me. (The reach of their necks is much longer than you realize!)
Another car pulled up behind me and I yelled to the young woman driving and explained what I was doing. She got out of her car and grabbed a stick from the side of the road and tried to nudge that big turtle. He was having none of it, now lunging at the stick.
I remembered I had a leather winter glove in my car (don’t ask, my car’s a mess) and I ran back to the car and put it on. Between the two of us I was able to pick up the turtle and get it to the grass at the side of the road. The other driver used the stick to direct the turtle into the grassy margin on the side of the road. The turtle stared at the two of us balefully and then lumbered slowly away.
Later on in the day I found myself thinking about the turtle. Did it end up turning around after we drove away and crawling right back into the middle of the road. Had it gotten hit by another car? Had it been picked up by curious kids at the ball field later that night? Or it maybe it had been able to make a long, slow determined trek to the nearby creek and hide itself in the muddy bank.
How many times have we run across people like this? We see someone is in a bad spot and we want to help. Maybe we don’t know where they’re coming from or even where they are trying to go. Some people gratefully take help and others may turn on us or just reject our efforts.
In any case, we can still try to help.