Turtles endure

In hearts and art; less so in traffic

Top: Sy Montgomery with Bear Pond Books' resident turtle; terracotta turtle, perhaps at the Met; at a Vermont pond in August.

When she talked turtle, Sy Montgomery, a unremarkable-looking middle aged woman, transformed into an intrepid naturalist, glowing with fathomless affection for an ancient, homely species. Author of Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, she read excerpts and told tales of reptilian characters with names and personalities worthy of Dickens.

I remembered my own small turtle adventure, years ago, when I spotted a snapping turtle—maybe 2 feet across—venturing into my lane on Rt. 14. I pulled over, waved a few vehicles past, and tried to figure out how to save it from a car, and a car from it. And keep my fingers.

The turtle ignored both the traffic and me as it plodded across the road, aimed where it no doubt had its own reasons to go.

Approaching from behind, I caught a stench of rot. Judging by the wet muck and weeds caking its great domed back, it had just emerged from wetlands. Determined to carry it to the other side, I grasped its back at 4 and 7 o'clock, hoping my hands would be far enough back from its jaws and claws.

As I lifted the heavy reptile, it shifted gears, whipping its elongating neck backwards to face me. Suddenly its mouth gaped open to display an orifice so shiny clean and deep pink, so like a shell or flower against its dark swamp-coated carapace. So beautiful.

As I put it down on the other side of the road, I nervously jumped back, but it had instantly resumed ignoring me and continued on, placidly, slowly as its ancestors had 230 million years ago, when they roamed with dinosaurs. T-Rex is long gone, but turtles endure, now faced with a far more lethal threat. What else: us.