Harold’s Room
Chapter Five
I think I need to break the timeline once again. I have made some references I need to clarify. You have been introduced to Dunbar and Herman now, so you know about almost everything currently in Harold’s personal enclave, but I have made multiple mentions of both a water bowl and a hot tub. Let’s clear that up. This spring I decided the water bowl was not deep enough, and the food dish was too small, so I ordered a REAL turtle water bowl with higher sides so Harold could immerse himself more deeply for better hydration, and ramps in and out to facilitate entry and exit. I retired the little food dish and started using the original water bowl for its intended purpose, which, as you might recall, is a food dish. Harold likes to climb right in with his goodies so as to get at them better without craning his neck, and as you know he has no trouble getting into that dish. He likes it much better. Normal size mealworms have a hard time escaping this one, but the gargantuan hybrids do get out regularly. The new, true water bowl is of course not a real hot tub, no jets, no heater, but when Harold sits in it, it sort of looks like he’s in a hot tub, so it was dubbed as such. Harold isn’t too concerned about using the ramps. He does on occasion, but he is a big enough boy he can climb right over the vertical sides and typically does that, or he climbs the hut to dive in, if you can call his scrabbling descent and slide down the other side a dive. He tries to grip the top of the hut with his hind claws as he descends in order to control said descent, and he is usually successful, but on occasion he fails to get a grip, and the controlled slide turns into a full out belly flop, face first. I do not believe he minds at all. It’s all good turtle fun. He does on occasion get completely out of control, and he falls off the end of the hut onto the floor. I have warned him that if he is not more careful I am going to put guard rails up on the ends of the hut and thoroughly embarrass him in front of his peers. The last time I told him that when he was sitting on top of the hut preparing to dive, he didn’t even attempt to grip it with his hind claws, dove right in, and then shimmied back and forth in the water as if he were taunting me. I told Lisa about it, but she said more likely he was trying to clean his dirty butt. Box turtles like to defecate during their baths, so maybe Lisa is right. I know he certainly pinches off some impressive loaves in my bathtub.
I have also mentioned Harold’s maturity. Shortly after he arrived here I did a quick naked-eye count of the rings on his scutes (the scales on his shell). You can get a reasonably accurate idea of a turtle’s age this way, like counting the rings in a tree. The ridges of a turtle’s rings wear with age, so the older they are, the less accurate this is, but you still know at least approximately how old they are, within a few years. At the time he arrived I counted thirty-six rings without magnification, so I estimate that Harold is now somewhere a bit over forty years old. My eldest son Sean turns forty-four this month, so I can still consider Harold to be one of my children, though he is definitely no young pup. Neither are you, Sean. You an old dawg like me now. Sean and I grew up together. I was twenty when he was born. We camped out together and hiked together. He was carrying his own trail snacks in a little back-pack at the age of four. Fran and I carried ours and the seven field guides. We wanted to know the name and characteristics of everything we saw, be it bird, mammal, marsupial, reptile, amphibian, tree, plant, fungus or interesting mineral. We canoed together, with him at first sitting on a cooler in the middle of the two man boat while Fran and I paddled, but when he was six or seven I bought him a Gene Jensen designed solo canoe like mine. He used a kayak paddle and scooted around like a water bug, literally paddling circles around us. We played softball and basketball, Pong and Nintendo together. We shot our .22 rifles and sledded together. We chopped wood together. We laughed and cried together. And we listened to music together. Lots and lots of music. He is as addicted as I am. Probably my fault, if fault can be found in the love of music. We often text each other regarding what we are listening to that day, and by that we know the emotional state of the other. Ian, Evan, I love you both just as much as I love your big brother, but we grew up together, and he has been and remains my best friend in the whole world. Best male human friend I should say, because Lisa is my best female human friend, and then there is Harold. Speaking of whom, I have strayed again.
Let’s talk about capes, shall we? You know about Mickey, but as I mentioned he has several others. He of course did not wear Mickey all of the time, but when I would remove it he would go straight to his hut and frequently stay there for quite some time. I began to wonder about this phenomenon one day, so I got out the tape, crawled under the table, extracted him from his hut and reattached Mickey. Harold immediately started cruising the room, then climbed the hut and posed. He looked like a super hero standing atop a skyscraper, cape blowing in the wind. I picked him up, removed the cape, and into the hut he went. I pulled him out and reattached the cape. Around the room he went, then back to the top of the hut. His pose was again heroic. He was christened with a new moniker when in costume: Captain Carapace. He likes it. Lisa and I believe he thinks he is camouflaged when he has his capes on, like being coated with mud, or having wet leaves stuck on him like some of the turtles who come to visit. I guess he doesn’t realize his colorful capes actually stand out like sore thumbs. We began making new capes for him. I made a Halloween cape out of an old white terrycloth towel with Jack-O’-Lantern, grinning skull and black cat appliqués. Lisa made him a black cape with a pattern of peace signs in various colors, a yellow one with whimsical turtles, and a gold one with Steelers written across it and several Steelers logos on it. This one caused Harold some problems. Have I mentioned Lisa is a die hard Steelers fan? And her sister Kelly is a full blown fanatic who lived in Pittsburgh and got to talk to various Steelers at Heinz Field. She has her own whistle, penalty flag, challenge flag, and a rubber brick to throw at the TV when she hears the final determination of a call with which she disagrees. Lisa’s son A.J., and Kelly’s husband Paul, who was the Co-pilot on the Steelers’ flight to Dallas for the Super Bowl (you may have seen him leaning out of the cockpit waving his Terrible Towel when they landed), are also both Steelers fans. Paul was a Captain before one of the airline mergers, when the influx of more tenured pilots pushed him out of his seat. Due to attrition he’s back where he belongs now. Lisa, A.J, Kelly and Paul were all at the infamous Miami at Pittsburgh “Mud Bowl.” Sean and I watched it at home, in warm, dry comfort, and giggled like schoolgirls when that punt stuck nose down in the sodden new turf. Have I mentioned my Terry Bradshaw jersey, and the fact that Lynn Swann is the best receiver I ever saw? Point taken?
Much to our delight we found out Harold is a Steelers fan, too. But as I said, this caused some problems. Any time a Steelers game is broadcast here, we put Harold’s Steelers cape on him and he parades around the room in his grandeur and then sits atop the hut in his super hero pose. The problem arises when, as it did several times last year, the Steelers have the lead and go into a prevent defense. In this house our motto is don’t change horses in the middle of the stream. Stick with what got you here. Go into a prevent defense on any team with a decent quarterback and some talented slant receivers and tight ends and they will pick you to pieces. And they did. Harold does not take kindly to us telling him that the Steelers are blowing a fourteen point lead in the fourth quarter. We can’t let him watch it in the great room with us. He won’t sit still on the couch, and Lisa is afraid he might “soil” it. He has accidents when he gets excited.
Harold doesn’t need to see the game. He can hear it just fine. I have an old school surround sound system. My rear channel speakers are Bose 301s. Yeah. That’s what the nice gentleman I bought them from on eBay said when he asked what I was going to do with them and I told him. “Uh, most people would use those for their front channel speakers,” he commented. “What are you using up front?”
“Pioneer HPM100s,” I replied.
“OOOOOOOOOOH!” he said, “I see.”
The man knew his speakers. I should explain for those of you who don’t know their Hi-fi antiques. I bought these circa 1976. They are true four-way, bass-reflex speakers in walnut veneer cabinets (I refinished mine and stained them ebony to match our monstrous black entertainment center and ancillary furnishings) with twelve inch carbon fiber woofers, four inch over-sized magnet mid-range drivers, typical cone tweeters, and the HPM part: High Polymer Molecular film supertweeters that can hit highs some people cannot even hear. All of the components are in die-cast aluminum frames, and there are mid-range and treble controls mounted on the face under the grill. I keep both of those cranked to max and always have. You can hear everything on the recording. Everything. To be honest, I have still never heard anything that can do what these do, and I have listened to some awfully good speakers in my lifetime. Check the internet. I believe most owners concur. And you can still find them. I bought Sean and Zach each a pair for Christmas back around 2004 or so. Two young men their ages shouldn’t prance and giggle like that. It is unbecoming. But then again, they had both been drooling over mine for years, and both of them wanted the HPMs when I died. One speaker each wouldn’t have done them much good.
But back to my junk so we can get through with this. I augment the HPMs with the 301s. “Ah!” you say, much as the gentleman I bought them from did. “And the 301s are direct/reflecting,” you say, “and are firing straight towards the door to Harold’s room, AND bouncing those rear mid and high range frequencies off those oddly angled ceilings and walls in your great room. Perfect. But I hear the voices of the commentators very clearly right there in front of me, as if they are talking directly to me. And I can feel the driving beat and thunderous crescendos of the stadium anthems, as if, as if, as if I were there…”
“Ah yes,” I reply. “That would be attributable to the large Harman Kardon center channel speaker hidden behind the wicker basket full of gourds and stuff on the shelf above the TV, and though the HPMs could really handle it on their own, I do have an Infinity ten inch powered subwoofer sitting under the left hand speaker stand, just so I won’t have to push them so hard.” I do have a point, or two, in all of this. Harold can hear the games just fine, and harkening back to my comments about how Harold and I play our music when Lisa is gone, we do not use the little black box. We set the receiver on five channel stereo and let it rip. We can make the earth move, Harold and I. And we do. We can hear it all just fine. So can the neighbors if I open the back door. Or the front door. Or the windows. The back door isn’t so bad since it faces the woods, so we open that frequently, weather permitting, so our woodland friends can enjoy whatever it is we are listening to that day. Hmmm. I have visitors. I see you out there you little turds, eating that Chex Mix I scattered on the patio. And now I guess you want bread and dog biscuits. Pardon me. I’ll be back. This is all part of writing in Harold’s room at eleven-thirty at night. I have responsibilities.
I’m back. I hung it up last night, fixed myself a hard salami sandwich with mayo, colby jack, lettuce and tomato and sat out here with the ‘coons. One fortunate little fellow, about half grown I’d say, lucked out and got the last bit of my sandwich. He was excited: “HARD SALAMI!” he cried, grabbed it and headed for the woods. But back to the true purpose of the former extended explanation. On this particular day, late in the season with a spot in the playoffs on the line, Captain Carapace was in his Steelers cape sitting atop the hut in his most heroic pose listening to the game. All was going well. Too well. Yup, you guessed it. The Steelers were up by a couple of scores midway through the fourth quarter, and they went into a “soft” defense, giving up short yardage to prevent getting burned deep. Harold heard every word the commentators said, and he heard every word they couldn’t use when Lisa and I started cursing as the ball moved steadily up the field in the wrong direction, one moderate chunk at a time. Harold heard us groan: Touchdown. One score up, Steelers ball, three and out, and here we go again. Soft prevent defense, down the field they go one nice little chunk at a time, clock running down and… We heard a slightly muted thunk from the sunroom doorway as time ran out, with the Steelers behind for the first time since late in the second quarter. We turned the TV off before the players made it to the tunnel, while discussing what color Kelly’s face might be at the moment, and what bile-laden words might be passing through her normally decorous lips (Have I mentioned she doesn’t like frogs, or flying monkeys?). We hoped Paul was flying that day, up around thirty thousand feet, where he could not hear her. Lisa’s phone started pinging as A.J. texted her his thoughts regarding that debacle of a fourth quarter, and brought her up to speed as to Kelly’s comments regarding same. A.J. and Kelly frequently text back and forth during the course of a game. “Fanatics,” I say, as I peel off my Terry Bradshaw jersey, and Lisa her Troy Polamalu. As Lisa is trading texts with A.J. and checking in with Kelly, I head for Harold’s room to see what the thunk was. As I step through the doorway I check to make sure none of the pictures have fallen off the walls, no plants have fallen from their hangers, or over on their tables. No stuffed critters on the floor. Nothing out of place. I look for Harold. He isn’t on top of the hut facing the corner where I last saw him. I look in the potted jungle, no Harold. I check behind the ficus and chairs, under the tables, and am heading for the door to look behind the dog biscuits when I notice a faint scraping sound from the corner of Harold’s enclave. I crawl over, lay my head on the floor and peer through the hut. There is Harold, on his back, flailing his head against the floor in a vain attempt to right himself. Poor Harold was so distraught as he listened to the announcers describing the collapse of the Steelers’ defense, and Lisa and me cursing, he threw himself off the end of the hut, or was attempting to fly to their rescue in his Captain Carapace guise, not realizing he was not, in fact, a super hero. Those are the only two explanations we can come up with. He has figured out he cannot fly, after several other equally disastrous attempts, and after each of this year’s first two preseason games I have taken off his cape, and he has just gone straight to his hut. He is totally disillusioned, as are the rest of us, but for Steelers fans there is always hope. The old leaders on the field are all gone, so now someone, several someones actually, must step up, lead by example and take their places, or all is lost. But isn’t that the way it is in all things?
While we are still on the subject of capes, you may have noted that the only holiday cape Harold has is his Halloween cape. For most of the warm month holidays he wears his turtle cape or Mickey, and for the Fourth of July, though we put a small flag out in the front yard, he hangs out with me in his room, Harold in his peace sign cape, and I in my “The Hippies Were Right” tee shirt. Just two good old seventies freaks making a quiet statement. Halloween is Lisa’s favorite holiday. All three of her children were born that week, her daughter, Cara, Gus’s mom, actually on Halloween. Yes, I know we haven’t said much about them yet, and for a reason. You of course know that A.J. is a Steelers fan. Cara prefers the Colts, I believe. And there was Joshie, whose team was the Jaguars. Lisa says the only real reason he liked them was because his initials were J.A.G., and that was enough for him. His nickname was Birdie, and his favorite birds were cardinals, which he called Lucys, and we do too. One item in Harold’s room I have not mentioned yet is the large, about eleven inches in diameter, rather round, or you might possibly call him “well fed,” male cardinal who hangs in the exact middle of the wall above the upper glass panels over the stationary glass window and the sliding glass door leading out to the patio. That is Joshie’s plaque.
For some reason we have always had a plethora of cardinals, both at the old house and here. I have counted as many as thirty of them in our feeding area and the surrounding trees, and there were undoubtedly more I could not see. Explain that however you like, but Lisa believes Joshie sends them to watch over us. I will not disagree, because I have seen them watching us through the windows. Joshie was A.J.’s identical twin. They were born on October 29, 1985, ten months after my middle son Ian. As is frequent with identical twins they were rambunctious, feeding off of each other’s energy, talking constantly, finishing each other’s sentences: typical identical male twins. Their lives were filled with the joys and sorrows of all children their ages, time passing, growing like weeds, and then it all changed. Joshie started to complain of aches and pains A.J. did not seem to have, which would seem to be somewhat odd given the circumstances. Doctors were consulted, “growing pains” were mentioned, the pains continued. More doctors were consulted, tests were run, biopsies taken, and eventually a diagnosis given, the words no mother wants to hear: “I’m sorry, but your child has cancer.” Joshie had Ewing’s Sarcoma, a primary bone cancer of children and young adults.
I am not going into great detail about this. Let’s just say it was a harrowing experience for all involved. There were doctors, hospitals, treatments, back to the hospital again and again, a bone marrow transplant donated by A.J., all to no avail. I told you I would explain why we want to be on the beach the first week of June. This is why. Once it was determined the cancer was too aggressive and nothing more could be done, Joshie decided he wanted to spend the rest of his time at home, which he did. He succumbed to the disease on June 4, 1998, with Lisa by his side, while lying on the couch at the old house. The first week of June is a very good time for Lisa to be lost in the waves rolling in on the white sand beach. She feels more at ease by the ocean, at home, at peace, as if that is where she is meant to be. If you want to know more about Ewing’s Sarcoma you can look it up. I never met Joshie, but I surely wish I could have. Maybe someday. We need to get back to Harold’s capes. My eyes hurt.
The last week of October the Halloween cape goes on. Harold will have been gorging himself for several weeks now on worms, bread, fruit and veggies, stowing up for the winter. He isn’t quite so picky at this time of the year. Shortly after Halloween is over and the cape comes off Harold begins to wander around the room looking very sleepy. He hides in corners and under the tables, returning to his hut at night, never seeming quite satisfied. Harold does not need any more capes for the holidays, because he won’t be awake to see them. It is time for me to put the hut in storage, get out “The Fortress of Solitude” and prep it, and then start shredding newspapers and wetting them down. From about the second week of November until Mid-April Harold will be snuggling in the damp comfort of his fortress which is situated under the large oval plant table in place of the hut. He burrows into the damp shredded newspaper, and nighty-night Harold. I have to pull the lid off of the box several times a week and mist the bedding so it will retain its moisture and keep Harold hydrated throughout his long winter’s nap. If he becomes dehydrated he gets a snotty nose and his eyes stick shut. When this happens he is susceptible to pneumonia and eye infections, either of which can of course kill him. I get very, very lonely in Harold’s Room in the winter and do not even want to imagine how I would feel if he did not exit the fortress in the spring. He does occasionally wake for short periods on warm, sunny winter days, and I get to chat with him for a bit. His hibernation quarters the first year, “The Isolation Chamber,” did not have an exit, but I would see him awake in there and would take him out so he could roam around and stretch his legs a bit. “The Fortress of Solitude” does have egress so on those days when he feels a bit perkier he can come out on his own and wander around. He never eats in the winter, no matter what you put in front of him, but does take an occasional drink, then wanders around a bit more looking out the windows, marveling at the brightness of the sun on the snow, and then back to bed he goes. See you in a week, or two, or three, Harold. Whatever is convenient for you.
It’s Saturday again. Lisa is at work. Last Saturday she was on vacation, and that pleased Harold greatly. We both were on vacation that whole week and Harold got to have our company every day. It was a “stay at home and work vacation,” though we did not stress ourselves too badly, and we did spend quite a lot of time with him. One of our main projects was stripping and repainting the slatted metal table in his room. It gets quite a lot of use, and the floral patterns were getting scratched and worn. Lisa had me sand it down. It took several hours to do that and tape it off. The spaces between the slats are a pain in the butt to tape. I then wiped it down with a tack cloth and put on one coat of gray primer, and two coats of white exterior enamel on top of that. We then brought it in and let it dry overnight, and the next day Lisa got out her new stencils and Ceramicoat craft paint and went to work. It now has new floral patterns, which she embellished with a few accents of her own design. I picked Harold up and showed it to him, and he was quite pleased. “Happy,” he said. “Very, very happy.” Lisa and I carried it back outside and let it dry in the sun for a bit, and then I put two coats of crystal clear exterior enamel on it to protect the new designs. We brought it back in to dry so we wouldn’t have too many bugs stuck in the clear coat as parts of the new patterns, but Harold said it made his room stink. I told him it was the cost of progress if he wanted his table to look good, picked him up and showed him the finished product, and he was good with it and agreed to suffer through. He got a bit upset with me this morning, though. Several nights this week I stayed up way too late writing (again), and have been suffering from a bit of sleep deprivation (again). I warned Lisa about this writing business. You can get hooked, like with heroin. You get started and you just can’t stop. You tell yourself, “You’ve got to go to bed,” and then your self answers, “But I have to change this part right here, and I need to add this right there….” Next thing you know it’s two hours later and you’re still punching keys. The problem is, sooner or later it catches up with you, like it did me this morning. Lisa left for work, I questioned Harold about what he wanted to listen to today, put on a Jimi Hendrix compendium, cranked it up, got the sheets in the washer, fed the critters outside and filled the water bowls (with the back door open so I could hear the music, of course), watered Harold’s plants and the ones on the front porch, pulled a few weeds out of the front lawn, then came back in, got the sheets in the dryer and my carpenter jeans in the washer, and I sat down to work on editing what I wrote last night. I was making good progress, but I had only had one cup of coffee at that point, and I fell asleep in my chair. I woke up a bit later, and there in front of me stood a tiny four-legged sleep policeman in a modular helmet staring at me. I said, “Harold, little buddy, I’m just so tired,” and went in to lie down on the couch for a few minutes. I got up about half an hour later and started back out into Harold’s room, and there stood the little policeman in the doorway to the house, still staring at me, and not looking pleased. I texted Lisa about him keeping me under close observation, and she ‘fessed up to setting him on me. “Well,” I said, “he’s not shirking his duty,” and I sent her a picture of him sitting on the edge of his food bowl, still watching me. Lisa and Harold are conspiring against me. Lisa says she is certain Harold knows I am writing about him, and is just as determined as she is to make sure I fulfill my promises and keep at it until I complete it, so they are in collaboration. If during his covert observations of me he notices me shirking, he marches over to stand defiantly before me, shoots me “the stank eye” to indicate his displeasure, and then he gives her a report on my progress or lack there-of when she gets home.
Harold and I decided to put on our new copy of Frank Zappa’s Läther album we just got Thursday (Frank was a musical genius, and to us a minor god, in case you weren’t aware.). We’ve heard it on the little black box, but not the beast yet. There is a “slight” difference. I’ve had two more cups of coffee now, and I’m pounding keys again, so Harold is not being quite so observant of my activities, or at least he is not so obvious about it. I still see him down there in his food bowl behind the bamboo slat pot peaking around it at me. But at least he’s not staring at me and giving me “the stank eye” like before. I’d better go get some more coffee now, and I need to get my jeans out of the dryer. My little nap put me behind. Back in a bit.