Unconnected Items

From here and there.

Oh wow, it's a Dan Yorke Show business card!



Jay Libardi in 1983 mocking death. Death laughed last.



This girl is having fun at a Lobsterz From Marz Concert.



On September 9th, Lobsterz from Marz will be performing at the Ludlow Fish and Game Club. If you go you will surely dance.



Here is a poster from a local Lobsterz concert in the year 2001. (click poster to enlarge)



These are objects on my desk in 2003.



Charlie Ryan outside City Hall in 2003.



In 1999 Dominic Sarno sent my family a letter, with a special postscript for me. (click to enlarge)



This morning I was walking past the Minuteman statue at UMass when a rock caught my attention.

It moved.



On closer examination, it was a baby snapping turtle!



When Carl Mayfield, of Martian Highway fame, was a teenager living in Pine Point, he once went scuba diving in Breckwood Pond. He was amazed to see that there were snapping turtles everywhere, swimming around and walking along the bottom. Some of them were old and huge, unlike the tiny infant I found.

Here's what the Co-operative Living website has to say about snapping turtles:

Snapping turtles feed during the day and at nighttime on a diet of both aquatic vegetation and animal material. As scavengers, they locate dead fish and other animals in the water by utilizing the combined senses of sight and smell. Being opportunistic predators, these turtles are capable of catching small vertebrates that share the same habitat – including fish and ducklings. The life expectancy of snapping turtles can exceed 50 years. In the northern latitudes of their range, they spend the winter months submerged and buried in mud, whereas further south they remain active throughout the year.

Although not nearly as impressive as the legendary alligator snapper that resides in the swamps of the Deep South , the common snapping turtle has adapted to increased human populations, which is understandable; the species has survived environmental change for millions of years, perhaps even watching the coming and going of dinosaurs.

Poor little snapper probably got confused in last night's torrential rains, and might have died had it been caught so far from the campus pond. However, I picked it up and carried it back to the pond and placed it in the muddy water, where it splashed happily out of view.



The little snapping turtle had made a mistake, but with the help of a higher power it was put back on the right path. I could identify with that turtle.

Finally, shall we get a bit Floydian?