I lived not far from Worcester for a few years and always heard these faint whisperings about the city’s unofficial mascot, something that had caused so much local speculation that it continues to divide the innocent from the cynical. Officially it’s called the Burnside Fountain which is topped with a statue titled Boy and Turtle. Colloquially it is often referred to as just Turtle Boy. It is a piece of art so contentious in its form and so muddled in its creation that it leaves audience both scratching their head and giggling. One of my deepest regrets of moving out of the area was the fact I never found the time to see the inspiration for so many lewd jokes, unsolicited commentary, and less than honorable mentions. When I found myself once again in Worcester helping a friend run errands I knew what I had to do. I had to find Turtle Boy.
I’ve seen photos online but nothing quite brings it home like seeing it in person from all sides. It leaves little to the imagination, which is a bit shocking considering it’s a publicly displayed piece of art adorning the park in downtown Worcester. The more Puritanical residents maintain that it depicts a boy riding a turtle and is supposed to imbibe, “innocence, joy, and rebirth.” Those of us less adept at cognitive dissonance are of the opinion that it depicts a far less savory subject matter. In fact in online forums it’s gotten some notoriety as “The Turtle-Fucking Boy” where one local has gone so far as to call it Worcester’s unofficial monument to bestiality. This is a life-size piece and if you visit it you can look the turtle directly in it’s anguished face. As one internet commenter lamented, “That is not the face of consent.”
While visiting it I couldn’t help but melt into a puddle of my former twelve year self, giggling, and pointing, and yelling. “OH MY GOD!” No matter how you decide to look at it, and what it may or may not depict, you can’t help but wonder whhhhhhy does it even exist?! The story of Turtle Boy is a long one, filled with gaping holes of knowledge, that will leave even the most adept historian deeply unsatisfied. On the other hand, if you’re one for a sideways glance and a bit of dry humor, it could make for an entertaining read so here it goes:
Samuel Burnside was a well known lawyer in the town of Worcester whose family became quite well respected for their humanitarian efforts. After his death his daughter Elizabeth Burnside gave $5,000 to the city to create a drinking fountain in his memory. It was 1905 and the purpose of the fountain was not to satiate the needs of humans but rather to keep local horses and dogs well hydrated on their rounds. The water bowls on the basin are made in two heights for the ease of these beasts of burden. What Elizabeth probably neglected to mention as she was commissioning this work was that it really oughtn’t depict anything particularly racy, in case, God forbid, her father’s memory be forever linked to the carnal lust of one teenage boy for sea turtles…
The fountain was designed by Henry Bacon, the same guy who later went on to make the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, but the bronze atop of it was left to Charles Y Harvey who enthusiastically took the job believing it’d be his masterpiece. And that’s where this story takes a delightfully dark New England turn. You see he only got to work on his masterpiece for approximately a week before he claimed to hear voices commanding him to kill himself. Some claim these voices came from the work itself, perhaps even from the traumatized turtle’s defiant beak. And on January 27, 1912 he was found on the banks of the Bronx river having slashed his own throat open with a razor. He did not survive. Sherry Fry was then asked to finish the piece, “According to Harvey’s original design.”And so he did. Or didn’t. It’s really hard to say because I can’t for the life of me envision anyone sculpting a scene of such vibrant turtle rape. Personally my suspicion lays on him – did he in fact create the vision of Charles Y Harvey, which could have been deeply disturbed to begin with, or did he apply some less than proper poetic justice for some other reason? Perhaps he knew Harvey, or the guy the fountain was dedicated to, and wanted to embarrass them after their deaths or maybe he was pulling and elaborate stunt on the city of Worcester. Or maybe it was some sort of inside joke… in the end it doesn’t matter because everyone involved in the project still managed to get the statue set up and displayed to the public but there are more than just a few rumblings to suggest that they too saw what we see today – one such clue is the fact the statue never had a public ceremony when it was installed. Instead they probably put it up in the dark of night and left it there to see what would happen. People may have whispered and muttered but the statue was allowed to stay and in fact started to work its way into local folklore. It even was moved once to a more populous location and was even stolen in 1972 by unknown vandals who later returned it.
It’s an uncomfortable work and an even more confusing story behind it. Perhaps this is why it’s not only dry and out of use it’s also rotting without any plans on restoring it. After one hundred years it still stands, oddly victorious, sending some sort of message to someone… but we’ll likely never what that message was or to whom it was meant for.
And to end my little story here is me – unable to maintain a straight face as I pose with the strangest monument I have yet to see.
It’s been a hellish week for so many here in the US. I have spent much of it watching in horror as people I know, and many thousands I do not, are evacuated from their homes in Texas and Florida and sent north to flee a succession of powerful hurricanes which are pounding everything they touch. I’ve seen people turned down by the airlines because they have brought their pets without a shipping proof carrier with themto escape, I have seen others having to leave beloved animals like horses behind because there was just no transport, no where to bring them, and no time. Hotels for hundreds of miles out are all booked solid leaving those traveling by car at the mercy of their vehicles should they need sleep or a break. The scene is of utter chaos and my heart continues to go out to anyone working their way through it.
It rained all week here and I found myself alone for the duration of this. Normally I enjoy a little time to indulge my inner introvert but this week? I think I just ached to know everyone in my inner circle was OK. There seems to be a lot of personal dramas and deaths swirling around as well, completely unrelated to the hurricanes. This leaves a traveling empath such as myself exhausted beyond measure.
Still I woke up feeling a lot more energetic today which is great because I had a few things planned… basically helping someone I knew without a car do a few errands – I am always the one to call for an emergency tampon run. And when I had finished I had decided it was time to go see what I could find with the limited daylight I had left.
I ended up in Townsend Massachusetts, I think where an old town common used to be. There was a large turn off here and I wasn’t sure if this meant anything but on a hunch I decided to check it out. There was indeed an old abandoned road turned into a trail here. It looked like at one point someone was intent on making this a very nice place to be – not too far up it there was a little clearing filled with picnic tables and a camping grill, all overlooking a river. It was quiet as could be. This was the sort of serene and calm place I needed to ease my frazzled mind. It was easy to sit here in the forest and just forget about everything and let the gentle breeze take away all negative thoughts. Overhead a hawk flew by too fast for me on catch on camera but with his elegant wings shimmering through the last rays the sun had to offer today. For a second I was humbled. Normally I hate hawks (have lost many a chicken to those little SOB’s) but today it almost felt like he was a spirit animal there to tell me something. It was very odd and inspiring all at the same time.
I continued to walk after taking a brief respite at the river to snap photos. The road path continued onward but didn’t go very far. I got to see a few different views of the river but other than that there wasn’t much here and at the end there was a little turn around loop as it just stopped dead in the woods. I wondered what this road had been put here for and why it had been abandoned and turned into a park of sorts. I have been finding so many of these places lately… and they always deepen the mystery.
In the coming weeks the trees will continue to turn color here in New England and I hope to take abundant fall foliage photos as I travel from place to place. September is always a month of great whimsy and beauty. It’s always been my favorite time of year and not just because I was born in September. Perhaps having entered the world when it was awash with such vibrant foliage is the reason my favorite color has always been orange…
Sunday evening Katherine and I chilled for a while after our adventures earlier that day and said hello to my brother and his girlfriend before eating what was left of our deep fried s’mores and attempting an early bedtime so we could get up and head into Boston, a little more than three hours away, in the morning.
I can’t say my history with Boston has been the best… I mean it’s a tough city, big, full of rude people and aggressive drivers, statistically the worst in the country, but maybe it’s not their fault. As my brother said, “Those roads aren’t meant for cars.” He’s right. Boston is filled with impossibly narrow roads and streets, many of which sport one sharp curve after another, and none of which make any logical sense. To add insult to injury half the roads are underground where the GPS no longer works and when you finally get where you’re 
going there’s no parking anywhere. And if that’s not bad enough the drivers… wow. They’re called Mass-Holes by the rest of New England. They’re real peaches. I felt like I was playing Russian Roulette at every intersection. But here too is proof of my personal growth in the past year. I only started driving myself to unfamiliar places less than a year ago and Boston was on my “uh-ah, not going to do it” list. But this time around I barely took notice, volunteered to head into the bowels of Hell without a second thought, I think shocking my brother and everyone whom I told. I used to spend my life constantly engulfed by panic and anxiety. These days I wake up and have to check my pulse because I wonder if my heart is still beating when I can’t feel it slam against my chest walls. It’s really odd but so peaceful and wonderful. Even babies don’t thwart me anymore. They used to make me super nervous but just recently I realized they’re not really made of glass. Now instead of being like, “Shit don’t get that thing near me, I may break it.” I actually find them kinda cute. Except infants. They’ll always look like raisins to me.
Back to the story… Katherine asked if we could take an adventure on the way and I said sure, why not. She chose Walden Pond because she wanted to see where Thoreau wrote 
Katherine put it. It was $15 admission and seemed to be… A swimming hole for Bostoners. There were paths around the lake, none marked very well but it didn’t much matter as there were roads and civilization everywhere. No one was going to die out here. A replica of Thoreau’s cabin stood near the visitor center where there was both information and oddly, a gift shop. We discussed how morally strange it was to have a gift shop honoring a man who was all about simplifying one’s life and cutting out materialism… Though this spirit did seem present when we found the sight of his original cabin. Here was a large pile of rocks (just like the rest of New England…) where people had made some sort of weird piled rock memorial to the man. Some used Sharpies to doodle messages and pictures on the stones they left behind.
It seems as if almost the entirety of the lake had been made into one big sandy beach. The one at the front had the shallow bits cordoned off like keeping a mass of people in a big fish net! Further out there was more nature-friendly bits, kayakers seemed to be enjoying the day on the water, and other people had found more isolated spots to swim. Katherine and I were not dressed for this, having no idea there might be swimming involved, but we decided it was a nice hot day and the water did seem rather nice. I pulled off my trusty Chuck Taylors and knee high nerd socks, rolled up my pants, and waded in. Katherine followed suit. OH! The water was so shallow it was warm and clear as the day is bright. Fish immediately came to my shockingly white calves and tried to nibble on them. These fish were weird though…. as they appeared to be a school of African Cichlids. Perhaps this lake was the “farm up North” fish disappear to when they’re no longer wanted. All I knew is these things did not look natural with their bulky silver bodies and fluorescent blue tails.
We stayed in the lake enjoying the day for quite a while, neither one of us really wanting to leave. We had found the site of the original cabin and stared at it’s sad foundation earlier on and now we were watching people stare up at the sky to witness today’s solar eclipse. A little girl near by reminded us about this and although it was slightly darker than usual neither one of us really noticed what was going on behind a large swath of fluffy clouds. Ah well, no eclipse for us, we wandered back to the car and continued on to Malden where a friend was waiting for us.
On my list of destinations I had several “castles” and estates that have been turned into public spaces for whatever reason. This was one of them and was situated at the end of a trail. There was supposed to be a trail head behind a local restaurant but there was also another entrance down a nearby dirt road – again a hard find. It was a set of steps aside the aforementioned road with a tiny cut off on the other side. Though it was poorly marked it was marked so we headed into the woods not really knowing what we’d find. Turns out hills. We found one steep hill after another that went deeper into the forest before dumping us out into a pasture and then at the top of the last hill a phenomenal view of everything below – a beautiful pastoral scene sprawled out ahead of us framed in the distance by the blue ridges of a mountain. A tractor plowed back and forth and a field of lilacs added additional color. I was already happy and we hadn’t even found the castle yet!
winding our way from the 
ample opportunity to photograph. I figured the abandoned Central Steam Power Plant in Fitchburg would be super cool… but this is really just me loving the sight of industrial decay. Hindsight it may have been a little hardcore for a first trip out…
seemed as good as an opportunity as any so with a little more coaxing I hopped out with my fancy new used camera and set about steam-punking it up.
Yesterday I got the wonderful opportunity to go to a farm in Northfield MA and take a bunch of adorable photos of cows, goats, and Vizlas. It was an amazing experience. Totally worth the sunburn! Afterwards I decided I was in the area anyway, might as well drive around…
aside the road. No one was around for miles so I decided what the hell, let’s take a few black and white snaps and maybe poke around a bit. It was a shed, an ordinary shed, filled with ordinary crap you’d normally find in a shed but clearly abandoned for many many years and bizarrely not near any house anywhere. I was slightly concerned I might find a hobo in there but I didn’t, instead I stumbled upon something that made my whole week – it was a river just behind the shed. I decided to explore. I knew this was probably someone’s property but they’d never know and I wouldn’t go far…
Rochester MA. It was well worth the two hour drive! And I was already glowing when I got back into the car and decided to go on another adventure. I had driven by Fall Rivers to get here so I decided on my way back I’d swing by and see if I could get a photo of the Lizzie Borden house. I’ve been by it before (though I couldn’t tell you why) and I figured it was possibly interesting enough to merit a blog entry so off I went… but while I was still driving through Rochester I saw a tiny sign aside the road and a three car parking lot promising there was a trail nearby so I stopped on a little detour…
Massachusetts. Upon getting out of my car all I could see was a field. Where was the path?? I might not have figured this out if it weren’t for a guy coming up it, across the field, with his adorable boxer puppy. After the usual greetings of, “Hey! Another living soul knows about this place!” I was on my way. It’d been a long time since I had trekked across a grown field. This is a fun activity if you’re a kid but slightly terrifying if you’re an adult as it’s very disorienting and probably absolutely infested with ticks. Still, this path was worn enough I knew I wasn’t going to get lost in the proverbial cornfields.
enchanted forest was a row of rustic benches overlooking what I think was the entrance to Avalon. It was a sandy-bottomed river, very odd in New England, that had ice tea colored water that got darker as it got deeper until all you could see was the dancing reflections of trees on pitch black water. Immediately I hopped down the shore and splashed about like a small child. It was over eighty degrees out and my hands were greasy from petting a stallion a few minutes before. This little wash-up was perfect!  And it was QUIET out here. Despite being very close to a busy roadway you couldn’t hear a single car going by or any people, just the occasional birdsong. This place was absolutely enchanting. I wanted to build a hobbit home on the other embankment and stay here forever. Since I couldn’t do that I instead took out some marbles and started snapping a few photos. I must have been playing out there for quite some time before I decided to make my way back – something I managed to do by remembering various rocks and trees. I also found an adorable mushroom along the way! By the time I got back to the car I felt refreshed enough for the two and a half hours of driving ahead of me (and no.. I never did manage to take a photo of the Lizzie Borden house although I did drive by. Traffic today was utterly insane!)
