Turtle with boy's initials carved on its shell found by his father 47 years later in same backyard

85-year-old Holland Cokeley found a turtle in his back yard. He picked it up, and recognized it as his son's turtle.

“I picked it up, and I thought ‘Oh geez, this is Jeff’s turtle!’” said Cokeley. “It’s been here for 47 years, and it still has the same the same markings on it!” Jeff was 13-years-old in 1965 when he carved “JC” and “1965″ on the turtle’s bottom shell and then released it back into the wild.

Turtle with initials carved into it surprises man

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Mantissa128

And now it is back for revenge.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  Turtles aren’t even aware that revenge can be served in any way other than ‘cold’; but that just means plenty of time to brood darkly.
  - http://twitter.com/KilgoreTrout42 Mike Notzon
    
    Slow and steady wins the race.
    - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
      
      Four decades of subsistence on a diet of slugs and hatred hones your vengeance powers…
- niktemadur
  
  If you love a turtle, set it free. If it comes back to you 47 YEARS LATER, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.
- irksome
  
  “And I woulda got him too, if it weren’t for that darn father!”
- Payne Hertz
  
  The real chilling thought is this turtle spent the last 47 years killing everyone with the initials “CJ” only to be denied justice at the end.
Antinous / Moderator

And then they ate it.
- niktemadur
  
  Hmmmm… turtle soup!
  
  No, that’s something I wouldn’t do, like I don’t do veal.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    In the notes from one of the California Academy of Science’s Galapagos expeditions, they report finding a tortoise that they believe to be the last member of its species, documenting it and then dining on it.
    - niktemadur
      
      Oh man, file that one under “douchebaggery”! I prefer the turtle preface to “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep”.
      
      http://www.american-buddha.com/dick.androidsdream1.htm
      - cdh1971
        
        Or Rombaggery….
awjt

Is this one of that old guy’s turtles from the Seychelles that he sucked the life force out of?
JoshP

I remember reading that it’s common for turtles to be very territorial. There was something about them having a ‘homing sense’ not unlike that of certain birds but that book was pretty musty… still, great story.
Palomino

Turtles hate being labeled.
- http://twitter.com/KilgoreTrout42 Mike Notzon
  
  I know four who disagree.
ROSSINDETROIT

Female Eastern Box Turtle. I have a ‘rescue’ Eastern Box who’s been with me since ’92. It’s surprising that it survived being carved on. The plastron scutes are no thicker than a fingernail, and like fingernails, have live tissue underneath. The turtle should have died of infection.
Seriously, kids, if you have to leave your initials on something pick a nice beech or oak.
- relawson
  
  Yeah, it kind of struck me as a little cruel, too. But, fundamentally, its not much different than scaring a tree, really.
  
  Which reminds me, I have a small patch of woods by my parents house that I need to visit to check on a mutilation thats about 18 years old.
  - RJ
    
    That’s definitely one way to scare trees.
    - bloopeeriod
      
      Thats just it. All of Nature is ours to deface and demean in any way we choose.
      This is nothing more than Graffiti on an animal. If a corporation did this we would be aghast.
      - ChicagoD
        
        If a corporation where a young kid who did this 47 years ago we’d probably think it should not have done this, but moved on with being “aghast.”
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jenny-Bonah/100002492794185 Jenny Bonah
        
        Nature is ours to eat.
  - OoerictoO
    
    sure, not much different, considering trees are sentient and feel pain
    - relawson
      
      Maybe the turtle didn’t tell the boy to stop? Or, possibly its into that kinky stuff.
    - James B
      
      I had the grading contractor save my logs when they cleared a small site for a cabin, and later hauled the logs to the sawmill to use for furniture making. I halfway think one of the trees was/is cursed. Never have I seen boards exhibit such a consistent pattern of inflicting injury (on me).
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

“Hey, I’m back. They turned my wetland into a subdivision…do you guys have any more of those fish sticks”
mesocosm

(shakes head sadly)

What kind of person carves their name into a turtle?
- Sean Nelson
  
  The 13-year-old kind who doesn’t know better, but probably looks back and regrets what he did later?
gauch0

Quick, everyone go read “The Neddiad” by Daniel Pinkwater!
http://twitter.com/leonardlow Leonard Low

Teenage-Mutilated Cringer Turtle
Michelle Matheny

Is it just me or is there no turtle in that shell? Normally you can see bits of the turtle even when it’s withdrawn…
- WestCoastMonaLisa
  
  I was wondering about that too!
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  The article linked to in the blog post shows a live turtle. I checked…
- http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham
  
  Maybe he was looking forward to Gramps carving *his* initials…
- http://profile.yahoo.com/5KDXOSBEPPO3YLPUEEF7FOIHGU talby0
  
  The angle of the hinged portion of the shell made me think so too- but a closer look seems to indicate that it is just closed up extremely tight.
- http://blog.nexcerpt.com/ Nexcerpt
  
  The photo is of a Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina) that can withdraw completely. In the wild, they rarely travel more than a few hundred yards in their entire lifetime, which can extend over a century. http://www.wtgrain.org/turtle/w3nhome.htm
  - http://twitter.com/Jedd Jedd Bartlett
    
    which begs the question, how come they only spotted it once in 47 years?
- http://www.facebook.com/L.Zillich Linda Zillich
  
  It’s a box turtle. They can completely close their shells. What you’re thinking about are aquatic turtles like painted turtles, they can’t close their shells completely and some of the turtle body still shows.
BarBarSeven

Everyone, please look at the original article and not the blog post:
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2012/05/04/turtle-with-boys-initials-turns-up-47-years-later-alive/

LOYALTY! TURTLE!
Dv Revolutionary

The turtle came back in 47 years and died. That shell hasn’t been in the ground or exposed for a year. Turtle shells have a covering that quickly becomes brittle and flakes off after death and then you have a white bony shell. Then that decomposes as well.

EDIT: Hey reading and watching original sources it is not even dead.
http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck

Is there something else carved in what’s the upper-right of that picture? H.. W? Maybe just an H?

It’s not mentioned at all in the source article or video.
http://openid.aliz.es/live live

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2012/05/04/turtle-with-boys-initials-turns-up-47-years-later-alive/

Sees to be alive.
DreamboatSkanky

Found a record of the original carvening:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2466xnPj61qa02qlo1_500.jpg
- niktemadur
  
  Reminded me of another horror story concerning amphibians.
  
  http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_QwCt3eV28EA/TMtbVUg641I/AAAAAAAAA5I/H1jBJSHbiJU/s1600/frogs_poster_02.jpg
http://www.cjboco.com/ CJBoCo

The story is only partially correct. The son didn’t really “release” the turtle, he was kind of pissed off at it and threw it not the woods yelling “I hate you turtle. You’re slow and nobody likes you!” When the father picked it up forty-seven years later, he heard the turtle say “I may be slow, but you’re ugly”.

Edit: your -> you’re
- John Ridley
  
  My ugly what?
  - http://twitter.com/cpconstantine Conrad Constantine
    
    Sorry John, but his grammar is correct, yours isn’t. or did I just earn a *whoosh!* ?
steve849

Hoax. Also, it’s cruel to cut a turtle.
saint_al

How did this old amphibian find its way back?

Turtle recall!
jennybean42

This is probably NOT a Hoax. My father did the same thing in 55, and I found his turtle in the mid 80′s. He had also drilled a little hole in one corner of the shell so he could keep it on a leash.
I don’t think I’d teach my child to carve into a turtle, but I’m not going to fault my father for doing it in 1955. Sensibilities about animals were different then.
On the other hand, it sort of makes me weep that a seven year old in 1955 had access to carving tools and a drill and if I gave those things to my son without supervision I’d be strung out for an abuse or derelict of some sort…
http://twitter.com/criminalcrafts Miss Demeanor

World’s slowest stalker, also I’m naming my band Turtle on a Leash
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=749997097 Rosin Ffield

i hopes this turdul wouldnae fall into the hands of the martial artist from the previous post!
Mongrove_Moone

No one remembers “The Bermuda Depths”?
Really, no one?