It's been a while, I have been in a scattered frame of mind and today is no different. I am thinking about turtles and thunderstorms. Turtles first. I saw a painted turtle on the road and I always have the urge to stop the car and pick them up. I used to do this for the kids. We would bring them home, look them up in the turtle book to identify the type and watch them for a while before releasing them. 40 years ago there were a lot of turtles, painted turtles, box turtles, snapping turtles, etc. Today you are lucky if you see one turtle all year. We had turtles, as I recall Maureen had them and gave them to us...Romeo and Juliet? Something like that. They were big painted turtles that lived in the living room window, eating flies, vegetables and ground beef. When I couldn't take the smell anymore I released them in the creek here in Tivoli. They got caught in the current, and I saw them going downstream, heads lifted high, watching out for each other.

My favorite turtle story is from Paul. He and Steve were going somewhere when they saw several cars stopped, watching an enormous snapping turtle slowly crossing the road. Now snapping turtles are scary to look at and if you hold a thick stick by them, their jaws can snap it in a second. Paul and Steve got out, and unexpectedly, Steve picked up the snapping turtle and carried him to the side of the road. The people were amazed. "Is that the direction he was going in?" asked Steve, and was told that actually, he was going the other way. So Steve picked him (or her) back up and carried him to the other side of the road. The turtle watchers loved it.

Thunder storms are another thing that comes with summer. Today was just a small one, but we've had some boomers. When I was a kid Bucky would go crazy when lightning and thunder arrived. "Take the bobby pins out of your hair - it attracts lightning." And, we would pull out the bobby pins quickly. Another thing, "Get off the phone - you'll get electricuted". This I almost believe because one storm hit close by and our phone made a strange noise. When I lived on Beacon Street, we had some terrible storms, and I would gather the kids and run into the hallway. There I would be joined by the woman and her daughter from across the hall, and we would hear Helen from downstairs, hurrying to join us. Actually, that is a good memory, we would all look at each other embarrassed, laugh at ourselves and wait for the thunder to stop.

I heard on the news this morning that they are expecting more than the usual number of hurricanes this season. Then when I saw Sabra this morning, she said one of the future hurricanes is named Maria. This gave me goosebumps...I mean that, so I think we better be ready for that one.