Henerey the Box Turtle

Henerey was my first and longest lasting pet. (You can see a pic of him in yesterday's blog. He's the one on my head) I got him from a pet store when I was 10 years old living in Mechanicsburg, PA. (Yes, I do realize that I could easily find a box turtle, but we lived in a tiny apartment which lacked woods)

Henerey was a great pet. Turtles don't tend to smell and are very user friendly. I remember that I had him in a large aquarium filled with dirt. Winters were hard because Henerey would hibernate from Decemberish until February. Mom liked him and usually didn't mind when I'd let him meander around the apartment. He was always traveling and climbing up on things, into things, but we always found him.

Henerey lived up to his omnivore status because he'd eat fruits and vegetables, various insects that we'd catch out back, and even goldfish that we'd put in the bathtub. That was always fun to watch.

He got along with all of my other pets, but there was one thing that Henerey hated; himself. If you'd put a mirror in front of him he'd repeatedly attack it and make it fall over. We'd also make mazes for him to run and time him as he sought his "prize" at the end.

I remember in fifth or sixth grade I wrote a report about my pet Henerey. I even did a science project on Box turtles and used him. So I turned in my paper entitled, "My Turtle Henerey", and my teacher circle his name every time I used it throughout my paper because she said I had spelled it wrong. When I received it back, I had to protest because you can spell your own pet's name when you made it up.

"So Gene what happened to Henerey?" To which I'd respond with a tear in my eye, "Well one summer day Bryan let my dog, Auky (to be talked about it a future blog) out to go to the bathroom. Well Bryan didn't shut the basement door and Henerey must have seen a door to freedom and decided to leave the "comforts" of our basement to make his way in the world. Trust my I scoured the woods around my house, but to no avail. Henerey never really liked to respond when I called his name. So Henerey, where ever you are, take care and remember "slow and steady wins the race."