Many people have their own takes on people devoting time to cleaning up the Turtle Boy statue/Burnside Fountain area on Worcester Common, ranging from what a great thing to have people take responsibility for part of their community to why is this demented object with a boy flying or swimming on a turtle getting so much attention.

I’ve always loved turtles, and growing up, I always thought Turtle Boy was a take off on Luke Halpin flying through the ocean while holding onto one of Flipper’s fin. When it came time to joining an effort to clean the area around the monument last June, I saw it as an opportunity to meet up face-to-face with a number of people doing things in Worcester that I had slowly gotten to know through facebook, and since that time, they’ve added to the fun of going to events and places in the city because it’s added a bunch of new familiar faces.

One event that didn’t get onto the radar about the inaugural Turtle Boy cleanup that’s lasted with me happened after the work was pretty much done. City Councilor Kate Toomey noticed that part of the stone from the street-to-sidewalk ramp had become dislodged & potentially dangerous so, in the spirit of the day, she bent down and did what she could to get the stone safely back into place by pushing the pieces back together as best as possible. Lots of people do little things like this around the city, in front of their houses, on their blocks, in the little unofficial public gardens that make Worcester a teeny bit better place to live, but I appreciated this special insight into a public official -– who did not call any attention to what she was doing -– that you don’t get listening to political campaign debates or on the city council floor.

A similar spin-off event occurred during Sunday’s now-annual Turtle Boy cleanup by the now “official” Turtle Boy Urban Gardeners (TBUG), who are now an official member of Park Spirit, and of whom I’m proud to be a member. By the time we arrived a half an hour after the 10 a.m. kickoff, the area around the statue was already weeded with new plants in place. That wasn’t was caught me attention though; it was the activity going a 100 feet to the side of Turtle Boy at the Massachusetts Official State Monument for Veterans of the Southwest Asian War (Desert Storm/Desert Shield) where three TBUG members were doing a similar touch-up job. It wasn’t part of the plan for the day, just something that made sense since there were extra plants and a memorial begging for some love and attention.

TBUG doesn’t expects any credit for this work; more than anything, hopefully, the word will get out to veterans of those wars, those still fighting overseas and those who’ve served the country in other wars to let them know that their efforts were and are still appreciated and this was a small way for a few members of the community to show it. Earlier in the year, with funding being cut back for many projects, there were reports of how that would affect the upkeep of the Vietnam Memorial up at Green Hill Park. One shouldn’t be afraid to ask community and neighbors for support because you might be surprised at how quickly they’ll be there for you.

If you’d like to support the efforts of the Turtle Boy Urban Gardeners, you can make a donation to Park Spirit (which is a non-profit 501(C)3 organization) in their name at http://www.parkspirit.org; any monies received will go towards future purchasing of plants and mulch to be used in the upkeep of the garden around the Burnside Fountain, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2012.

Brian Goslow

http://www.twitter.com/bgoslow