David M. Carroll - Self-Portrait with Turtles

A Memoir

A MARINER BOOK
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston New York

FIRST MARINER BOOKS EDITION 2005

Copyright 2004 by David M. Carroll

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carroll, David M.
Self-portrait with turtles : a memoir / David M. Carroll,
p. cm.
ISBN 0-618-16225-9
1. Turtles. 2. Carroll, David M. I. Title.

QL 666.C5C369 2003
597.92dc21 2003047895
ISBN 0-618-16225-9
ISBN 0-618-56584-1 (pbk.)

Book design by Anne Chalmers
Typefaces: Miller, Clarendon

Printed in the United States of America

MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Facing title page: A page from a swamp notebook.

F OR L AURETTE

I am much indebted to Harry Foster for suggesting that I write a "more personal" book. Telling him that Memory Lane was not my favorite street, I resisted the idea for some time, but his persistence and persuasion overcame my reluctance. I value the guidance his thorough and thoughtful editing provided in the development of the book. Peg Anderson's dedicated manuscript editing served me well in arriving at the final form, Martha Kennedy's cover design is an absolute gem, and Anne Chalmers's book design superb.

My most supportive agent, Meredith Bernstein, was very influential in my finally deciding to write a memoir centered on my lifelong (since age eight, anyway) connection with turtles. Her enthusiastic reaction to initial drafts of the early years section spurred me on. My wife, Laurette, and daughter Rebecca proved to be invaluable in-house editors for yet another book. They and daughter Riana were critical touchstones throughout this project. Lenita Bofinger's comments on drafts of the early portions of the manuscript were a help and an inspiration, and Joan Beauchemin's readings and responses were a source of great encouragement.

As I wrestled aloud with myself in trying to decide whether to go in the direction of this book, I had many patient ears to hear me and benefited from the insightful comments of listener-friends. Many thanks to Bill Miller, Pamela Getz, Tim Dansdill, Margaret Liszka, Chris Tremblay, June Lisk, Brett Stearns, Greg Van Buiten, Joan Warren, Sally Metheany, Marie Pacetta, Jane Pinel, Pam August, Beulah Bean, and Bill Douglas. And, as with all my books, special thanks to Brian Butler and Ann Campbell Burke.

My greatest debt, of course, is to the turtles.

EARLY YEARS

The First Eight Years

The First Turtle

Compaera

Another Spring

Wild Boy

Loss

Gordon

Mr. Moxley and Mr. Malone

The Beach

Bill and DeDe

Cedar Pastures

Walden

Art, Biology, Writing

ART SCHOOL

My Room

The Fens

Girls

The Ark

Drawing, Painting, Writing

Laurette

Queensbury Street

Farewell to Cedar Pastures

MIDDLE YEARS

Big Sandy Pond

Teaching

Turtles

The Old Johnson Farm

Pumpkin Hill

Wild Cranberries

Archie Carr

LATER YEARS

Sibley

The Digs

Dudley House

Spotted Turtles

The Year of the Turtle

Tupper Hill

Return of the Native

The New Land

Ariadne Nesting

What mean these turtles, these coins of the muddy mint issued in early spring?...I have seen the signs of spring. I have seen a frog swiftly sinking in a pool, or where he dimpled the surface as he leapt in. I have seen the brilliant spotted tortoises stirring at the bottom of ditches. I have seen the clear sap trickling from the red maples.

Henry David Thoreau, Journal, February 23, 1857

C ONSECRATED to the God of my parents before my eyes were open, I lived my first eight years in a closed circle of family, relatives, church, and school. I lived in a totally human environment filled with human concerns and considerations. It was a world built by people for people. To the four directions, all horizons were human horizons. All constructs I knew were human constructs, from God on high to carpets and sidewalks underfoot. The physical, intellectual, and emotional aspects of my life had their dawning in a place where there seemed no purpose beyond the getting of the daily bread.

In season I went out to play, but my life was essentially an indoor life. Curtained rooms, a velvety quiet; white lace on the credenza, carefully dusted knickknacks, glass doors closeting cups and saucers, parlor for Sundays. There were stairways and wallpaper, brooding harpy aunts and furtive alcoholic uncles, the clock and the evening paper. There were supper and love and, at times, exceptional wit for relief. My earliest field work lay in reading the faces around me, interpreting gestures, listening to intonations, analyzing turns of phrase. From behind, from a certain angle (I would position myself or wait for him to turn), I could read my father's cheekbones and tell if he'd been drinking. I had to have an idea of how things were going to go.

The difference between inside and outside was not profound. Beyond the door, the steps of furnitured porches descended to side-walks. Narrow alleys between close, high houses, creepings of moss in crevices of stone or cement where the sun never reached. Backyards, fences, hedgerows of phlox, sweet peas climbing the backs of houses, some butterflies and occasional birds. Sun-blinding summer streets, tightly clipped hedges with spiders and ants; rows of houses ascending hills, homes facing each other in long columns. Porches with gliders, shades lowered against the sun, raised with its passing; people sitting, at almost any hour, overlooking the street. On my walks I crossed the street time and again, seeking passage by vacant porches.

The central Pennsylvania summers were marked by heat and drought. Hot pavement, attic bedrooms hot even in the dead of night; after dark heat lightning always flickered, almost never bringing rain. When afternoon thunderstorms did come, they were torrential. Street floods surged against curbs. Quickly into swimsuits, we kids lay and splashed in gulleys, pavement-heated storm-water's ephemeral streams. There was no detaining this water. Streets and sidewalks steamed and dried in less than a quarter of an hour.

Not far beyond my home and my street were my church and school. Church and school were one, and I in uniform. High stone steeples, dizzyingly high. Cold imposing stone ornamented with stained glass and reaching to heaven. No sun inside; the light of God was a mixture of wavering candlelight and unreachable jeweled gleamings of glass; light enough for crucifixes and tortured saints with strangely serene faces, and for the faithful gathered to pray to them. The purpled, incensed hush sustained a bewildering blend of ecstasy and guilt that I seemed to have no choice but to embrace. Everything in my nature resisted this.