During the summers, I'd ride my bike to the Mill Pond to go swimming with friends. When my brother was born in 1978, I would ask my Mom over and over when I can take him with me. "He's just a baby", "He's too little", "He JUST learned how to walk", "He can't swim"
That was the last straw. I begged my parents to drive us to the Mill Pond so I can teach him how to swim. After all, I helped teach him to crawl, helped teach him how to walk, showed him how to climb the trees, how to be nice to animals so he could pet them, helped him learn everything that he knew in his short life so far. Finally, my brother was 3 and my parents went to the Mill Pond with us so we could see how he'd handle water. Little bugger took to it like a fish - sure, I got to teach him a little bit but he was a natural.
I learned how to swim by my Dad taking me out in the lake and pushing me out of the canoe. Sure the lake was only 3 feet deep but it was murky and was horrifying. You could feel the weeds slicking up around your legs and it taught me how to swim awful quick. No one bash my Dad for this - life was different back then. Back to my brother....
I was in heaven, my Mom said I could take my 4 year old brother to the swimming hole by myself for the first time. I had my bike and he was on his little bike with those tiny training wheels. We were on our way home when we saw a turtle in the road. Being country kids, first thing you learn is to treat wildlife with respect, it has to live too. We parked our bikes and went to see if we could help the turtle head to the side he was pointed towards.
As my brother went to move the turtle, I noticed it was a snapping turtle. I was 12 and should have known better but my brother was about to pet the turtle's head. I shoved him over and was unlucky enough to be on the snapping end of his mouth. It got me in between my thumb and pointer finger, and it didn't want to let go.
Having no other choice, I loaded that turtle up on my bike seat with my hand still attached to it's mouth and walked my bike home. This turtle glared at me the whole time with his red eyes, hissing at me from time to time. My brother thought it was one big adventure and would circle me slowly on his little bike, drawing nasty hisses out of the turtle every time he'd go around. We finally got home, much to my Dad's dismay - hearing my brother screaming out "Kathy got BIT!"
Normally, those words mean I get iodine poured into whatever wound I had, a nice smack from my Mom and sometimes an appointment to the dr for a shot. Got a cat's tooth dug out once and another time I went thru rabies shots because I wouldn't show my Dad the baby raccoon who'd bit me. So, hearing those words, my Dad assumed the worst.... he was right.
The turtle didn't want to let go. He tried prying it's jaws open with a stick, then with a metal screwdriver in case the taste of metal would make it let go. When that didn't work, the great "pour off 1982" started. Mom started with rubbing alcohol, then iodine, paint thinner, even a tiny bit of gasoline was used. The turtle didn't let go. My Dad felt bad for the poor thing - not his daughter who was crying and bleeding... for the turtle. He eventually decided we had to kill it.
So, that brings me to a 12 year old balancing a 20 pound snapping turtle on a fence post the size of a paint can, a 4 year old brother screaming about how it keeps hissing, 2 dogs and 4 farm cats watching with interest and a Mom filling up the bathtub with water to keep the meat from spoiling. My Dad didn't feel comfortable using a hammer, the suggested saw was out of the question (thanks little brother), he refused to shoot it since that was sure to damage the fence post (probably his daughter too but I didn't see that way back then) so, he used a hatchet.
Lessons learned that day - a snapping turtle doesn't care if it bites a 4 year old or his 12 year old sister, it WILL make nasty hissing noises the entire 1/2 mile back to the farm, those beady red eyes will haunt this 50 year old woman forever, nothing will get him to let that hand go, and finally... a rusty hatchet does wonders.
