I think we’re past “turtle-crossing-the-road season” now. In my neck of the woods in Southern Virginia, I haven’t seen those “boxed” pedestrians for over a month now.

They seem luckier in the road, (for a short while,) than the possum. (Forgive me, I forgot the “o.”)

In helping one of these four-legged “tanks” across the road, always point it in the direction in which it was heading, as it may be heading to a food or water source, or if it’s a male turtle, it may be headed in the direction of a female turtle. Failure to do so may lead to short-term food deprivation or the short-term deprivation of “turtle whoopee.” (“Turtle whoopee,” barely a step above turtle lethargy.)

When a child, on the Old Concord Road, I captured an eastern box turtle, (“captured” being too much of an energy-charged word for picking up a turtle,) keeping it in a cardboard box for about a week and feeding it potted meat sandwiches. Fearing its death from my excessive handling and the amount of cholesterol, sodium, and nitrates building up in its already turgid, cold blood , my parents made me release it. As memory serves, they said release the turtle where I found it, then come back inside. (Probably fearing I would follow and “capture” it again.) For many years afterwards, I thought the name ‘box turtle” meant these turtles could be kept in a pasteboard box.

Turtles seen sideways crossing of the road resemble some World War II helmets. Different species have different shell shapes, with variation in individuals of the same species.I’ve seen Yanks, Russians, Japanese, Italians, and some with flange jutting from the back, appearing to be Germans. I’ve seen no British, as I think no turtle shell exists shaped like the “Tommy” helmet.

Many of us have a “turtle right of passage.” (Parents, teachers, and ministers help form our psychological makeup, and I guess turtles do too.) It was so with my son Jeremy when he was about 10 years of age.

I picked up, (captured,) an eastern box turtle from a Caswell County road, taking it home for Jeremy, innately knowing that he should have the “turtle experience” too!

By that time, I knew how to identify turtle gender, and it was a male eastern box turtle, identifiable by his red eyes and slight indentation on his lower shell, plastron. This prevents it from falling off of the female turtle while perched on top, doing what male turtles do. Therm also had his own individual shell marking as a dent on his top shell. This didn’t mean Therm sometimes varied from the “missionary,” but was a ‘”shell scar” from being struck by a car sometime earlier in his life. From this dent radiated “healed cracks,” reminiscent of the “splashed” ray systems around some of the moon’s prominent craters.

Jeremy was proud of his turtle, even taking him along in his plastic terrarium, (strides had been made since the pasteboard box,) to a seasonal event in downtown Yanceyville, where many of the attendees inquired about Therm.

We fed him strawberries and cantaloupe, healthier for turtles than potted meat.

Two weeks into this “turtle ownership”, my late wife Diane said Therm should be released before he died on us, and she, as well as my parents 30 years earlier, were right.

Jeremy and I took Therm to a wooded area reached by foot past cul-de-sac of our road, releasing him into a sandy area of high grass not far from a pond providing a water source. We watched him disappear into the grass, but we didn’t follow.

Jeremy cried a little and I “blurred up” a little; but I didn’t do that when I let go my one-week acquaintance, “no-name turtle” three decades before.

The cause of Jeremy’s tears and my “blurring” was probably due to one week’s extra acquaintance with a turtle, this one given a name, “Therm.”