Post 2 - The Turtle Hunter

The Turtle Hunter

 

 

            The old storyteller was sitting on the side porch of the store, looking out across the creek and enjoying the breeze blowing in from the southwest. 

“How you doing today?” I said.

“Just sittin’ here, thinkin’ about the things I’ve seen here,” he said, “and the people who grew up here.”

“Such as?”

“You probably think nothin’ important happened here, or nobody important ever came up on this creek.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinkin’ it, though.”

“How do you know what I was thinking.”

“That’s what everybody thinks, everybody who doesn’t know.”

“So, who important came from this creek?” I asked.

“The University of Maryland football team won last Saturday,” he said. “ I watch ‘em every time they’re on TV. They’re having a good season this year.   ”

“I suppose they are, but you didn’t answer my question.  What does that have to do with who important grew up on this creek?”

“I’m gettin’ around to it,” he said.  “They’re called the Terrapins, you know.”

“What?”

“The University of Maryland football team is called the Terps, that’s short for terrapins.”

“I suppose it is, but what does that have to do with it?”

“I’m gettin’ around to it.  Do you know why they’re called the Terrapins?”

“No, I don’t.  I’ve always thought that was a strange name for a football team.  They’re in a football conference with an eagle, and a ram, and a tiger and a pack of wolves.  Doesn’t strike much fear in an opponent to play against a team called Terrapins.  That’s a small turtle, isn’t it?”

“That’s what it is.  A terrapin is a small turtle.”

“Why would any school, especially a big university like that, name its football team after a little turtle?”

“It started right here on this creek,” the old storyteller said.  “I’m gettin’ around to it.”

I knew he was.  His stories were unpredictable, you could never tell what he was getting around to until he got there.

“Started here on this creek?” I said, careful to show enough interest so he would keep the story going.  “The University of Maryland football team named the Terrapins started here on this creek?”

“It did,” he said, and he pointed out across to the other side, where marsh grass grew from the edge of the water to a row of myrtle bushes that marked where the land stood above the high tide line, and pine trees rose behind the bushes, showing that the land there was even higher.

“See those pine trees, that’s where Byrdtown is.  Byrd spelled with a ‘y’ and not an ‘i’, not like a bird that flies, like some people spell it,” he said. 

“The road sign says Birdtown, spelled with an ‘i’ like birds that fly,” I said.

“That sign’s wrong, they didn’t know how to spell it ‘cause they’d never heard this story.  There was a family over there named Byrd,” he said.  My grandmother was a Byrd.  Her people lived over there, in Byrdtown, that’s where she was born.”

“I believe you,” I said.  “So the sign is spelled wrong, what does that have to do with naming a football team after a turtle?”

“I’m gettin’ around to it.”

I decided to not interrupt him again, so he could ‘get around to it.’

“There was a boy lived over in Byrdtown, this was before my time, mind you, my grandmother told me about it, he was her cousin, and everybody called him ‘Curly,’ called him that because of his hair.  He had a lot of it, and it was curly.  Just about everybody on this creek has a nickname given to ‘em.  Their parents give ‘em a name when they’re born, but that’s temporary.  Their real name is given to ‘em later, somethin’ that fits better than the name their parents gave ‘em, and that new name sticks.  That’s the name people around here know ‘em by.  So this boy was called by the name of ‘Curly,’ that’s what people here called him.”

I nodded to show I was listening.

“Well, Curly was a good crabber, the men in his family were watermen, and they’re all good crabbers, you know.  Curly was a good athlete, as well, played every sport and was good at ‘em all, and not only that, he was smart.  Not only was he smart about catchin’ crabs and turtles and things like that, he was book smart.  Did real good in school.”

I nodded again.

“Back in those days, people around here didn’t value an education.  Don’t need an education to catch crabs or turtles, you know, so they didn’t value schoolin’ at all.  Most of ‘em went to school only long as the law required, then they quit and went to crabbin’ and catchin’ turtles, so they could make some money.”

I nodded again.

“Not Curly.  He liked school, and he went all the way through school in town until he walked up on the stage to get his diploma.  Rare thing, that was, for a boy who grew up around here, especially a boy from Byrdtown, where all the men were watermen, started catchin’ crabs and turtles soon as they were old enough to take out a skiff, and that’s all they ever thought about doin.’ Rare for one of ‘em to get an education.”
            I nodded.

“Not Curly.  He decided that he would go on to college.  Nobody from here ever went to college in those days, but Curly did.  He had a problem, though.  He had to make some money to pay the tuition.  Watermen like his family don’t make enough money to send a boy to college.”

I nodded.  He seemed to be going somewhere with this, and he might get to the story pretty soon, if I didn’t interrupt him.

“Curly lived at home and worked all that summer on the water to make enough money for tuition.  He did the same as other watermen were doin’ back then in the summer, he caught crabs and turtles, and he especially liked turtles.   He was good at catchin’ them.  A man could make a livin’ those days by catchin’ turtles, if he stuck with it all day, every day.  Well, now, Curly wanted that college education, so he stuck with it.  He’d hunt along the edge of the creek in his little skiff from the time the sun came up, and he’d catch turtles with his long handled net until they got to be scarce in the water, and then he’d poke up in the marshes where they had gone to hide.  He was the most determined turtle hunter on the creek.”

I was beginning to see a possible connection.  I nodded for the old storyteller to keep going.

“When summer ended and time came to go back to school, Curly hadn’t spent any of the money he made catchin’ turtles, he’d saved up a bundle, so he took it and went off to a little college on the other side of the Bay.  He was a good student and a good enough athlete they named him captain of the football team.  Bein’ on a team was good for him, they gave the athletes their meals free of charge, and that kept down his expenses.  And when school ended in the spring, Curly came back to Byrdtown, and he took out his little skiff on this creek and started catchin’ turtles again, savin’ up all the money he made so he could pay for next year’s tuition.  He did that until he graduated, worked every summer catchin’ turtles here on this creek and spent the rest of the year studyin’ at college until he walked up on the stage there to get his diploma.

“When he finished, the school offered him a job helpin’ coach the football team.  He liked the school, and the idea of stayin’ there sounded right smart better than anything else he could find. 

“He was a good coach, but he was more than that.  He was also a good salesman, always sellin’ the school every chance he got.  He came up with the idea that the school, bein’ close to Washin’ton, D.C. like it was, could get some of that grant money the federal government was always passing out for research, so he went after it.  His football team was winnin’ games, and that got his foot in a lot of doors, so he became a top notch peddler for the college, talkin’ to congressmen and the like about sendin’ some of that research money to his school.  It was just a few miles up the road from D.C., you know, so he could pass out tickets and the congressmen could go see football games, and that helped.”

I nodded.

“He did so well gettin’ research money that became a part of his job, in addition to coachin’.  He was probably the only college football coach in the country whose main job wasn’t coachin’, it was gettin’ research grants, and he was really good at it.  So good that the school grew by leaps and bounds, built libraries and laboratories and increased the faculty with top notch researchers by usin’ that federal grant money he was bringin’ in.

“Then the day came that the school needed a new president, and they started lookin’ in the normal ways, like all schools do, but somebody said they had a good leader right there at the school, somebody who would do a bang-up job as president just as he had done at everything else.  So they asked Curly, the football coach, the waterman’s boy from Byrdtown, to be the new president, and he did that the same way he did everything, he did it so well that he grew that little college into one of the major research universities in the world with all the money he was bringin’ in by givin’ away those tickets for the games his football team was playin’.  The school grew so big it built a new football stadium, and they named it after him, and they named the team after the way he earned his way through college.  When you hear the sports announcers on TV tellin’ that a football game is being played at Byrd Field, and the home team is called the Terps, think of Curly Byrd, the boy from the other side of this creek who earned his way to college by catchin’ those little turtles, and then he became the college president who grew that small school into a leading university.”

“That’s a good story,” I said.

“I told it just the way my grandmother told me,” the old storyteller said.  “He was her cousin, so she knew a lot about it.”

“So somebody important did come from this creek, after all.”

“Yes, but he’s not the only one.  Another man who lived by this creek about the same time also became famous.”

I settled back on the bench, ready for his next story.  I knew it was coming, I could see it in the way a grin spread out across his face like happened when he had thought of another good one to tell.

But then a waterman came up from his boat, and the old storyteller turned his attention to the newcomer.  I’d have to wait another day to hear that story.

 

Author’s note:

            Behind most folklore, there’s a scrap of truth, you know.  I didn’t do a lot of research on this story, matter of fact, I didn’t do any at all.  I just told it mostly the way it was told to me, but there is some truth behind it.  What I know for sure is that Clifton ‘Curly’ Byrd was from Byrdtown on the other side of the creek, from a family of watermen like my people were, and he was my grandmother’s cousin, and he made his way through college by catching turtles in the summer from the waters and marshes around the creek where I grew up, and he became coach at that college, and he was eventually named president of that little college, and while he was president, it grew to become the gigantic University of Maryland, and their football teams are called the Terps, and they play at a stadium named Byrd field after him.  I didn’t have to do any research to find that out.  I learned most of the story at the store by the creek and from my grandmother, and that’s all the research that went into this story.  Have to be careful about research, anyway, you know.  Any storyteller will tell you real quick that you can’t let a lot of facts get into the way of a good story.

            I hope you enjoyed this wandering through the past with me.

 

            Glenn Lawson