Drive Time

Funny thing about driving a car (or a pick up truck

if you’re that sort), all those miles driven, and for

the most part you’ve driven blind. Now I’m talking

about the daily routine driving from here to there,

to work or the grocery store, let’s say.

Unless an accident or a parade gets in the way,

one has the tendency to put the brain on autopilot,

and you get where you’re going without noticing

a damn thing, same neighborhood, same trees,

same street, stop signs all the same, gas pedal go,

break pedal stop, the same, same, same.

Oh, perhaps a new store now occupies the old

Katz Drugs, you notice in passing. But once you

do, then that’s that, the new becomes the same

old, same old to you.

Driving, other than getting you to where you’re

going generally becomes a waste. Well, quite

a number of years ago, on the way from home

to pick up my son from religion class at the

Catholic school, I was crossing a culvert down

by Brush Creek when suddenly I couldn’t believe

my eyes.

There was a tortoise, a huge one, really big,

National Geographic, Galapagos Island big. He

was just sitting there in the middle of the dry

creek bed in a developed, well-established

suburban bedroom community in a bustling

metropolitan city.

I pulled over, got out of my car to inspect the

massive creature, and except for its monolithic

size it looked the same as a tortoise a child

might find making its way across the backyard,

humongous I tell you.

What in hell, I thought to myself. Well, of course

I had to leave it there. It was way too large for

me to handle. No joke, it stood knee-high and

may have weighed a couple of hundred pounds.

This I do remember, for the next few weeks,

while driving around the neighborhood, especially

down by Brush Creek, I kept a watchful eye peeled

to see if that giant beast would reappear.

At the time I may have told one or two people

about my sighting. I’m pretty sure they thought

I was either drunk or hallucinating. Thought I

was crazy, I suppose. I didn’t mind that so

much. Probably best, I let them believe I was.

Now back in the day, I did have an occasion or

two when I drove under the influence, but that

was only on the way home from parties late at

night. Even then, given alcohol infused visions

of staggering disbelief, I had never even imagined

a Tortoise that big.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s the same old

fisherman’s story about the one that got away.

Notice, I never once called it a turtle. It was a

tortoise with legs and feet and not fins. At 

least I deserve some credit for knowing the

difference between the two.

                              -30-

Chris Hanch 5-25-2020