ARE YOU A TURTLE?

"You bet your sweet ass I am!"

We got this thingie... 

and lost a whatchamacallit that went with it.

A short little cable that was only about 5 inches long.

It connects a fan on the back of an external hard drive to its power source.

The problem with both of us is that our rememberers are broken.

We see something and think...

oh, I'll put this in this "safe place" and I'll know where it is.

But then we can't recall where said safe place abides.

Heavy sigh.

This put me to rummaging through everything

in search of the whatchamacallit.

Our dresser has two sides of long drawers 

that are divided by a top to bottom row of small drawers.

These drawers are too small to house much of anything other than 

socks or underwear... which neither of us use them for.

 

 

Okay then, so I decided to look through the useless drawers in our dresser.

That's when I began to find odd objects...

belt buckles, a tiny empty frame of little value, three marbles,

several little boxes of things.

When I lifted one of the boxes,

I found the items in the photo above.

 

 

I had never heard of this organization prior to this event.

The mixture of turtles and confederate flags

generated an intense curiosity.

Turtles in white hoods made of bed linens?

"Eh-hem!"

as my ex mother-in-law used to say in moments of discomfort.

 

 

 

I asked the man what they were and what they meant.

(What if there were sheets in his closet?)

He did not know either...

he had no clue where they came from, 

only that they had been around for a long time.

 

 

Well, I found out about them here:

Ancient Order of Turtles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and

The Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles

 

If you are not in a mood to go there and read for yourself...

I will try to be brief, which as you know, is not very likely.

 

As it happens, 

this card and sticker are for a branch of a drinking club that was founded

during WWII by bored bomber pilots...

that spread to fighter pilots, and outward through the ranks into

civilian life as well.

The story goes that one of the pilots happened to overhear

a conversation about other fraternal orders being allowed to use

a back room in a pub for meetings and get drinks at half price.

Thus the Ancient Order of Turtles began their happy hour life. 

Membership was simple.

One was required to answer four riddles.

Because Turtles were honorable men and women of good quality,

no dirty thoughts were allowed.

Of course the questions had obvious dirty answers unless one was 

clever enough to figure out the clean answer.

Example:

What is a four letter word ending in "k" that means the same as

intercourse?

(talk)

 

Once one answered four riddles correctly...

bing!

you were a Turtle.

Turtle members often wore turtle pins...

but in a bar, one might be approached and asked

"Are you a turtle?"

If you were a member, then you had to answer...

with the assumption that all members were the proud owners of 

a very mellow tempered jackass...

"You bet your sweet ass I am!" 

(You see you can only talk about an animal jackass in a nice way and this was all clean fun.)

Should you not answer correctly...

you must buy every turtle present the drink of his/her choice.

=:]

 

 There are famous Turtles it seems.

Wally Shirra was asked if he was a turtle on a space flight...

where the entire earth was listening in.

He did not want to mention a mellow tempered jackass

and find his own ass in a sling.

Ditto for JFK, 

who was asked if he was a turtle in a press conference...

his reply was that he would buy the reporter a drink later.

 

Anyway, 

its a cute story that I thought I would share.

Have any of you heard of this?

or

Are you a turtle?

 

Either way, 

I do find some odd things in this house.

Honestly...

I thought of Yertle and his swamp. 

I mean... if Yertle was Hitler...

there could have been a club of TTT Turtles.

You never know what's out there.

Enough silliness today.

See ya!