Turtle Power

If you watched a lot of cartoons in the 90’s like me, then you were likely in love with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My love for these four “heros in a half-shell” bordered on infatuation, teetering strongly towards it.  My brother’s best friend exclaimed “you have the coolest sister ever!” because I often wanted to play turtle action figures with them.  I made turtle masks out of  paper plates and played with toy nunchucks. I played the video games, spouted the theme song at top voice, and hollered “Turtle Power” to anyone who would listen.  One thing I did not have was my very own Ninja Turtles t-shirt. My brother had one, several in fact. I longed to borrow one, but he wore them so often that this was nearly impossible. 

One day, I decided I was going to make my own t-shirt. I borrowed several Ninja Turtle trading cards (which were postcard size rather than baseball card size), and I taped them to my shirt. Not one, not two, but many. Most featured Michelangelo, my absolutely favorite turtle. I thought I looked amazing. My mother thought I looked likely to get picked-on, but she didn’t try to stop me. She kept her mouth shut and drove me to school.  Nobody made fun of me. I’m sure some of the girls probably sniggered, but I didn’t feel out of place. And as we lined up to go down the hall to art class, my best friend (a boy) commented that it was just like watching T.V. on my back!  I thought that was awesome!  Nevertheless, when I got home, my mother had decided to take me to the mall to buy my very on turtle tee so I wouldn’t have to repeat this card-taping.  Of course, it was the 90’s so the shirt I picked happened to be neon.

My other fashion habit was wearing all one color, also neons. I had neon blue, neon green, neon orange, neon pink, neon yellow. And I only wore skin-tight clothes, mostly bike shorts and t-shirts, and of course stirrup pants and paint-splatter jeans...but the jeans weren’t part of my one color obsession. The one color obsession came from playing Rainbow Brite, which is something I did all the time. Rainbow Brite wore all the colors of the rainbow, but her friends each had their special color. I played Shy Violet, Buddy Blue, Indigo, and Red Butler by donning a different color each day. Sometimes I could convince a friend to join me and we’d run around the park fighting off Murky and Lurky as Patty O’Green and Lala Orange. 

Lucy the Duck

When my brother and I were little, he was obsessed with animals.  I liked animals as much as the next kid, but not as much as Eric.  He lived for animals.  I, on the other hand was obsessed with hollywood, movies, actors, and anything famous. So, naturally, when our grandparents decided to take us to a zoo that housed many famous animals (like the horse from Pippi Longstocking), we were both in hog heaven.  I’m not sure if they had any hogs there, but if they did, they’d be famous ones.  The zoo was called...wait for it...Hollywild Animal Park and it was located in a part of town that we’d never go to otherwise. It was one of those places you forget the way to when riding in the car, but you always recall what it looks like as you drive up.  What happened the first time we went to Hollywild, I’ll never forget, either.  

Inside the zoo they have these gumball machines full of animal feed. You pop your quarter in and out comes a handful of little x-shapes treats that are safe to feed to all the animals. Well, not all the animals, you wouldn’t want to try feeding it to a tiger. Well, my brother and I begged for change so we could feed some famous animals and of course Popo and Grandma were happy to oblige. The first animal we fed was a duck, who was wondering around with the human visitors. I thought it was cute and really charming.  She (we decided it was a she) pecked some treats from our hands and quacked in delight and we were satisfied.  As we made our way through the part, to look at that famous horse from Pippi Longstocking, we heard a quacking behind us.  Sure enough, the little duck had followed us. Probably for the food, we were sure, so we begged another quarter off our elders and gave her more of the nameless x-shaped treats. She gobbled those up happily as well, and we went on our merry way.  Well, so did the duck. We stopped to observe the panther, she stopped to observe the panther. We admired the flamingoes...she admired the flamingos.  I decided to name her Lucy, so that’s what we called her as we meandered through the park with a duck at our heels.  I grew attached to her quickly.  She was adorable!  And I felt like she chose me! Of all the kids in the park, she was following this kid! And she really was following us. We couldn’t deny it or chock it up to a coincidence. Everywhere we went...so did Lucy, quacking contentedly.  I began to pay more attention to her than the famous animals. I fell in love with this duck!  I only had eyes for her. She was now my pet for the day, and though I knew we’d have to leave eventually, she was mine. Maybe I could convince the zoo and my grandparents to let me take Lucy home.  Why not?  

Now, the real highlight of a trip to Hollywild Animal Park, was the safari ride.  In the sticky South Carolina heat, as many passengers as could fit- young, old, big, small- piled into busses that’d had the windows replaced with thin metal bars in the center, so you could poke you head out and get a good look at all the wildlife.  This safari came at an extra cost, of course, but you wouldn’t go to Hollywild without going on the safari.  My Grandparents got us tickets and we were ecstatic.  It was the last thing we planned to see for the day.  As we waited for our bus to roll up, we knew it was time to part with Lucy. We had to prepare to say our goodbyes and so we did.  We fed her some more X-shaped treats and told her how much she meant to us. We thanked her for following us and being our special ducky friend. Then about fifty camp kids in matching shirts and khaki shorts herded into the nearby picnic shelter, brown bags in hand. Lunchtime!  Lucy became confused. Instead of listening to me tell her how much I loved her, she was hopping over to quack at the campers.  They were noisy and rowdy, laughing hysterically at each others’ jokes and chomping into their peanut-butter jellies, drinking they Ecto Coolers in the pure happiness that comes only with the summer. 

“Lucy, Lucy!” I called frantically. Now I was the one following her! Chased was more like it. I was desperate. Curse these camp kids for stealing my duck away! Why was she more interested in them? Sure, they had a variety of food that was bound to be tastier than the X-shaped treats, but we had a relationship! We’d visited the zoo together, seen all the other animals together, talked about our favorites! My brother gave up before I did.  My grandmother nearly had to pry me from Lucy’s side to get me on our safari bus on time.  I was half-sobbing, throwing a tantrum. Now I’d never see Lucy again and we weren’t even having a proper goodbye!  We climbed onto the smelly bus and got prime seats near the windows. A tour guide handed out crackers that looked like matzoh crackers and told us they were for the ostriches.  We oohed and aahed as we rolled past the lion and the apes. We rounded a hill and then they came...a flock of ostriches, who resembled the velociraptors in Jurassic Park to a tee with their movements.  We threw bits of cracker out the window for them, but they came right up to the bus, the whole flock...and they poked their beaks in the window nearly clipping off our fingers! It was the most terrifying and wonderful experience. Coming down from our ostrich high, the obviously theatrical ending to the safari, we sat back in our seats as the bus made its way back to drop us off.  As we drove by a wooden fence, a lone duck stood quaking and flapping its wings. Her wings! For I was sure it was her, Lucy, and she’d waited for us to go on the safari. I wanted to tell her to follow the bus! She wasn’t close to the exit! When we got off the bus, she was nowhere to be seen and I felt a twang of guilt. The camp kids had distracted her, but she didn’t love them! We’d boarded the bus and then she didn’t know where we were. She’d gone looking for us and that was why she was standing near the end of the safari ride. But I also felt proud and happy to know that she’d come looking. We meant as much to her as she meant to us!  When it was time to go, I didn’t leave feeling sad. I was a little disappointed that Lucy and I hadn’t gotten our proper goodbye, but in the end, we didn’t really need one for our friendship to mean something. 

http://www.hollywild.com/