Many years ago I worked as a crew foreman for a Mom and Pop tree and landscape service. They were, and still are, very good people who taught me more about Arboriculture and plants than I ever thought possible. They showed infinite patience with me over the years as I was not a natural climber, and had very little interest in making sure I got all the roots when pulling Gout weed out of a garden.
I went into tree work because... well, I honestly don't know why I went into tree work. It was a summer job that paid slightly better than the job I had mowing lawns the summer before. I was leaving college after barely getting away with earning a degree in Journalism, and all I really wanted to do was get as far away from UMass, and the protests over CIA recruitment on campus, and a failed romance as I could. There is nothing better to take your mind off of having your heart crushed than hanging from a rope with a running chainsaw in your hands. I had also told my boss, under heavy influence of Mt. Gay Rhumb, that I would love to learn how to climb trees. I didn't shut up so I had to put up.
I never dreamed when I began with them that I would last more than a couple of years, but I stayed in the business for 21. I also had no idea that I would meet such an interesting cast of characters over those 21 years. There is a great deal of turnover in that field, and it also seems to attract people who are a little different for lack of a better word. Over the years I have made a number of life long friends. I have also met and worked with musicians, artists, junkies, pathological liars, dancers, a number of alcoholics, thieves, one bank robber (also doubling as a junkie), sociopaths, psychopaths, and one gentleman who refused to believe that glaciers once covered the earth or dinosaurs once walked it as well. There were lost souls, a young widower, hippies, yuppies, and trust fund babies. People trying to find themselves, and people trying to find a path. Some were gone in an hour, and others made it a career.
The customer base was as varied as the employee group, but one thing was constant. The tree and landscape industry is very customer service oriented. We always worked very closely with our clients to make sure they were satisfied. No matter how crazy they were. Which brings us, in a very round about way, to our subject.
We had one couple as clients who were very nice, very rich, and very particular. They spent a great deal of money with us, and we in turn spent a great deal of time making sure they were satisfied. We had planted and pruned around the center of the landscape which was a man made pond. Not your garden variety Coy pond, but the real deal about 100 feet in diameter. It was well populated by frogs, goldfish, and one very ambitious Snapping Turtle.
The Mom portion of this Mom and Pop, who we will call Rhonda for the sake of anonymity, was told by the clients to be on the lookout for this turtle. It had evidently been seen feeding on the other residents of the pond, and that was not going to be allowed. We were all gathered together by Rhonda and told that if any of us sighted this turtle we were to apprehend it immediately. No reward was mentioned. I am guessing that it was believed that the satisfaction of saving all of those fish and frog souls would be payment enough. If that is what was believed then they were quite wrong.
I am, probably by virtue of being very close to the top, a big proponent of the food chain. If something came along and was big and bad enough to eat me then so be it. I wouldn't be overjoyed about it, but fair is fair. Snapping Turtles have to make a living too, and this one was just doing what came naturally. When I was a kid I used to love catching reptiles and amphibians. Snakes, Spotted and Painted Turtles, salamanders, you name it. One thing I was never tempted to pursue or catch was a snapping turtle. I think I had read somewhere that they had enormous necks, and they would stretch their heads around, bite you hard on the arm, and would not let go even if you tasered, shot, or decapitated it. I am pretty sure the only thing that would cause them to let go was a lightning strike, and I had no intention of testing this theory out. I didn't want to tangle with them as a kid, and I had no intention of doing so now just because it was trying to live a happy life.
A week or so later we were on our way onto the property to do the weekly landscape maintenance. As we rounded the pond Rhonda sat bolt upright in the truck and hollered for me to stop. Without a word or a backward glance she opened the door and slithered out of the seat and onto the ground where I lost sight of her. When I got out to try and figure out what the hell was going on I was stunned and baffled by what I saw. Rhonda was crawling along the driveway on her belly back the way we had driven in. Every so often she would slowly poke her head over the lip to peer out at the pond, and then continue along with her slithering. This was not a fast slither either. She was barely moving. One hand and one leg, and then the next hand and leg. No sound, no dust, almost no movement. You are probably way ahead of me here, but honest to god, I was dumbfounded as to what the hell she was doing. I later described the whole scene to a friend of mine who is in Special Forces, and he told me that if she could make a HALO jump he would put the green beret on her himself.
After what seemed like an eternity Rhonda leaped out from behind a bush to surprise the hell out of the same freaking cement turtle that had been sitting by that pond for years. She honestly wanted to capture that nasty Snapping Turtle for her clients/friends, and she let her intense desire and sense of urgency blind her to the obvious. So many emotions hit her face so fast it is a wonder it didn't shatter. Elated grin. Total and utter shock. Dumfoundedness, if that is indeed a word. Disappointment. Then the embarrassment which she quickly covered over by sticking a cigarette in her mouth and pulling a gout weed that was sprouting next to the turtle. I did not think it the right time to ask why she thought it necessary to spend 15 minutes stalking a lone gout weed plant. I did laugh though. Loud and hard. For a very long time. I never said anything about it. I just laughed. When someone is busted that bad there really is no need to add anything.
For whatever reason this incident had a profound effect on me. I spent 14 years with this company, and this was like boiling all that time down into one quarter of an hour. I had drunk their koolaid, and had been stalking cement turtles for them. Always thinking that what I was doing was the important thing when, in reality, if I had taken the time to step back and think about it I would have realized that most people would have just let the turtle be. I left that company soon thereafter.
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