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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

once saw a big snapping
turtle walking across the west field. I went out and picked it up.
Nasty, slimy, stinky thing full of remnants of its many years of
plowing through mud and detritus. I put it into the bed of the pickup
truck and went into the house to see if the book would tell me how to
clean the thing to be suitable for cooking.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My uncle ran an earth moving company.  This was in the fifties, the height 
of wet lands draining and levee building along the Mississippi.  One of the 
operators working for my uncle would keep his eye open for turtle.  As the 
area drained he would look for the telltale hump.  When one appeared he 
would maneuver the Cat as near as he could then pick it up with a pole.  It 
was somewhat comical to watch as he was deathly afraid of snakes and if 
there were none around his imagination filled in the blanks.  There was a 
chain compartment on the Low-Boy trailer that he enlarged to keep the turtle 
until time to go home.

He would feed the turtle with corn meal to cleanse it then when time for a 
Barbeque the turtle would be a main course.  Jack was a heavy drinker, 
spending most of the time off the cat in an alcohol induced haze.  He and my 
father were drinking buddies so we went to his barbeques a lot.  I tried the 
turtle once and figured the only way to eat one was to get completely wiped 
out so you did not have to taste it.

Don Bowen      KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html