Pete the Turtle

     This is Pete, the turtle. He lives in a mobile home and has traversed the galaxy. For many years, he held the human infested world upon his back. Now, with the end of humanity, Pete is being considered for the role of World Leader.

     He's a cool dude. He moves at his own pace, as opposed to the extinct humans who were always in a hurry to obtain whatever they could get, then die.

     When I was in junior high school, my buddy, Mike, and I collected all sorts of animals from our part of town. We loved to find turtles down in the woods behind our neighborhood. We usually had at least one turtle every summer. We kept the little guys in a box in Mike's back yard. We fed our turtles moths, lettuce, grub worms, and beetles. Near the end of the summer, we would write our names on the top and bottom shell of the turtles, and turned them loose in our gardens. Sometimes, the little guys would escape into the larger yard areas. We got such a big kick out of finding our little friends again the next year. Sometimes, we found turtles that some of the other boys has discovered. The rule was always to leave the last person's name visible.
     Those were good days. The summers were hot, but not like summers today. We stayed outside most of the day and late into the evening and night hours. It's funny how those days stand out in the memory of an old man like me; and yet, I can not remember much of what happened yesterday or even today. We tend to remember the good things that happened in our earlier years, but bad things happened too. Maybe we try to block out the bad, maybe we simply forget the bad, and I am pretty sure that we even exaggerate much of what we think we remember.

     One of my favorite lines from Alice in Wonderland is "Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today." Humans tend to live for the future, while looking back at the past, but they rarely live for the moment. Oh, sure. Many people will say they live for the moment, but they are really looking forward to the next day, the next week, the next year, or any number of exciting or  repulsive events of the future. In the end, time stops for everyone, but most people will say they will spend eternity with the creator. I wonder....