{"id":276,"date":"2004-06-05T08:17:00","date_gmt":"2004-06-05T16:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/?p=276"},"modified":"2006-10-16T19:50:53","modified_gmt":"2006-10-16T23:50:53","slug":"accidentally-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2004\/06\/05\/accidentally-speaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Accidentally Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"turtle_sm.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/images\/turtle_sm.jpg\" width=\"288\" height=\"209\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/archives\/images\/turtle.html\">View larger image<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\nThe nearby train tracks connect our house to Daryl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, the stores in West Acton, and even Idylwilde. Matt and his friends use them and often they find things you might not stumble upon on, say, Central St.  Like the head of a deer. After staring into its glassy eye, Joe claims he \u00c3\u00abll never be the same.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday they found this snapping turtle sidled up next to the tracks and were afraid it would meet the same fate as the deer. Enlisting my help for their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153turtle rescue mission,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we walked back to where it was, and then much further before finding it safely away from the speeding trains.  <\/p>\n<p>The turtle is larger than it appears in this photo. Separate your hands to about shoulder width, imagine the weight of a bowling ball and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have a sense of its size. It also has that giveaway triangular head and a long sharp tail, and though we were three, it was clearly in control. One snapping lunge at Joe and we all jumped back, hearts a poundin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n<p>That snapping turtle, the tales of the deer, the time of day &#8211; dusk &#8211; and  my vision of one of the boys tight roping the rails with Walkman on high inspired, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One of these days you guys are going to find a dead body back here. I guarantee it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a perfect place to hide one, let me show you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Robby replied.<\/p>\n<p>We walked down a few feet to a brambly culvert channeling water from recent heavy rains. I walked to the concrete lip, looked down into the swirling black water and thought, <i>sure this would be the place. <\/i> <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I ever killed someone accidentally  this is where I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d stuff the body,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Robby observed.<\/p>\n<p>I backed away from the edge , said something about the mosquitoes and headed back home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View larger image The nearby train tracks connect our house to Daryl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, the stores in West Acton, and even Idylwilde. Matt and his friends use them and often they find things you might not stumble upon on, say, Central St. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2004\/06\/05\/accidentally-speaking\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}