Turtle Mania

Abstract

This is serious. Turtles live in every nook and cranny of my house–on shelves, in bookcases, on the mantle over the fireplace, in a special cabinet with glass doors that’s filled to overcrawling, in the cubbies of my rolltop desk. It all started when I became director of the Cognitive Sciences Center at the University of Minnesota in the late 1970s, and my family discovered that the turtle is the logo of the Center. The first carved turtle, a gift from my wife, came into my life innocently enough, but they have multiplied beyond imagination and the situation has gotten out of control.