Turtle Power

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. Sometimes doing the right thing goes against common sense.
It might involve personal sacrifice or missing out on an
opportunity to earn a living. It might even put us
in danger. The right thing is rarely the safest path forward,

(00:49):
but it often represents the best odds. In September of
the people of France found themselves in a desperate position.
The soldiers and war machines of germ Many were marching
closer and closer to Paris. It wasn't as if they
hadn't tried to stop them, though that's what they've been
doing for weeks. The war had sprung like a leak

(01:10):
from a seemingly tiny hole with the assassination of Austrian
Archduke France Ferdinand. That was June twenty, nineteen fourteen. By
August onest Germany had declared war on Russia. Two days later,
they set their sights on France as well. They had
lost territory to France in the aftermath of the Franco
Prussian War of eighteen seventy one, and they wanted it back.

(01:33):
In late August, on their way to France's northern border,
Germany pushed through Belgium. The small nation was quickly captured,
and by August twenty if it was in full occupation.
All of a sudden, the enemy had possession of territory
right on the border, and they showed no signs of stopping.
Germany's forces were like a tidal wave of bullets and blood,

(01:54):
and it seemed very likely that France would indeed be invaded.
But again they tried to op it. British soldiers came
to help, but the Battle of Months did not go
as well as they had hoped for, sending France and
her allies into a quick retreat. That was August. You
have to stop and think about what it must have
felt like for the people of France, and specifically those

(02:16):
in the capital city of Paris. A foreign power had
declared war on them and was now barreling towards them
like a juggernaut. In fact, nothing had stopped Germany at all,
and it would have been easy to feel hopeless in
the face of that approaching danger. In fact, Britain's Foreign
secretary at the time, Sir Edward Gray, expressed that hopelessness

(02:37):
out loud to a friend when he said, the lamps
are going out all over Europe. We shall not see
them lit again in our lifetime. So that's where the
people of France were at politically and emotionally. At the
beginning of September of nineteen fourteen, Germany had broken through
and despite their best efforts, was quickly marching towards Paris.

(02:58):
So French forces were gathered in along the Marine River
northeast of Paris to try and stop them. There was
only one problem with the plan. They were vastly outnumbered,
and while there were thousands of additional soldiers inside Paris itself,
the front line was forty miles away and they had
no way to get them there. If ever, there was
a time when the difference between the right choice and

(03:20):
the wrong choice could be measured in lives, this was it,
and that's when one of the generals had an idea.
What if all the taxis in Paris closed up for
the day and instead agreed to drive the soldiers to battle.
They would mean asking these drivers to put their lives
in danger. It would mean asking them to give up
the money they might have earned that day. But then again,

(03:42):
if Germany broke through, how many customers would have been
left for them anyway, So they all made the difficult
decision they were going to help. On September seven, a
fleet of over six hundred taxis lined up in Paris,
took on heavy loads of soldiers and gear, and then
set off for the Marne. When they arrived that night,

(04:02):
the sight of thousands of fresh troops sent a jolt
of electricity through the French forces, giving them a new
drive to succeed. And succeed they did. Oh and the
taxis most of them headed home the moment they dropped
off their precious cargo. I can't blame them. Those cars
were their livelihood and they probably wanted to get away

(04:23):
from the battle as fast as they could. Many, though,
stuck around and were used to transport wounded soldiers to safety,
because well, it was the right thing to do. Tragedy
usually takes things from us, our possessions, our homes, and
sometimes even the lives of the people in our community.
But if the story of the taxi drivers of Paris

(04:45):
has anything to teach us, it's just how powerful the
illogical can be. By putting their own lives at risk
and jeopardizing their livelihood, they helped turn the tide in
a war that seemed all but lost In might not
make sense, but then again, that's what makes people curious.

(05:18):
Eccentric people are nothing if not entertaining. Their behaviors can
either be charmingly strange or borderline appalling, like those of
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. He had a habit of judging
people not either clothing or upbringing. To get a good
sense of a person's character, he would um sniff their excrement.

(05:38):
Author Charles Dickens, on the other hand, insisted on always
sleeping while facing north. He believed that it helped his creativity.
Dickens even carried a compass with him to ensure that
whenever he wrote, he was doing so will pointing northward.
And Waldo Pierce was another eccentric. He was a painter
born in Maine in eighty four to a lumber baron father.

(06:00):
His upbringing was nothing out of the ordinary. He grew
up alongside two brothers and a sister, attended Harvard and
even played on the university's football team. After he graduated, though,
the budding artists decided he wanted to see the world,
especially the areas where his field was experiencing an explosion
of creativity with a focus on impressionism. Pierce left the

(06:21):
US bound for England and Paris along with his friend
John Reid. They had boarded a cattle ship called the
SS Bostonian, which was set to reach Liverpool in just
ten days. Reid made the trip. Pierced, on the other hand,
had second thoughts about his accommodations. Having come from wealth,
he couldn't bear to be stuck on a ship that
wreaked of cow manure and eat food that was crawling

(06:44):
with worms. He had just settled into his cabin when
the notion struck him to get off the ship as
quickly as possible as it was pulling out of Boston Harbor.
He leapt from the deck into the water and swam
back to shore. It was such a last minute decision
that he left his wallet and watch behind. His friend
John Reid was questioned about his friend's disappearance. He handed

(07:06):
over Pierce's belongings, which had been left right there on
his bed. The captain, however, didn't buy his story about
Pierce jumping ship. Read was taken into custody and thrown
into the brig for his friend's murder. Once the Bostonian
reached England, Reid was actually led in chains by two
British officers to the Board of Trade, where he was
to be tried for Pierce's demise. Lucky for him, his

(07:29):
buddy wasn't far behind. Pierce had bought himself a ticket
on the luxury liner the Mauritania, which had gotten to
Liverpool a few days early. The captain accused him of
breaking his contract by abandoning his post on the Bostonian. Pierce, ever,
the practical joker, had the perfect alibi. He told the
court that he had gotten sea sick and fallen overboard.

(07:50):
He had even tried to call for help, but the
captain had been on the bridge and probably couldn't hear him.
Much to Pierce's surprise and luck, the captain really had
been on the bridge, so the matter was dropped. That
wouldn't be the last time the artist had fun at
someone's expense, though, as Pierce's popularity grew in the art world,
he started making some interesting new friends. For example, he

(08:12):
traveled extensively throughout Europe with Ernest Hemingway after World War One.
He also married Broadway actress Ivy Troutman in nineteen after
which the couple moved to Paris, where Troutman befriended author
James Joyce. And it was during this time when Pierce
carried out perhaps the most elaborate prank of his life.
As he got to know the concierge of his building,

(08:32):
he learned that the woman had a fondness for animals,
so one day he gifted her with a turtle. Yeah,
a turtle. It wasn't the biggest of turtles, mind you,
but it became a real source of joy for her.
She came to love the animal as anyone might love
a dog or a cat, and soon enough the turtle
began to grow. Every few weeks the turtle size would

(08:54):
visibly increase. She even showed her neighbors, proud of the
incredible miracle of nature she had been gifted with. Except
the turtle hadn't been growing at all. No Pierce had
been sneaking into her apartment and swapping out her beloved
pet with turtles that were just a little bit larger
than the last. Eventually he gave it a rest, though,

(09:16):
leaving the concierge with a massive turtle and no explanation
as to why it had grown to be so large.
Until that is, he started replacing it again with smaller
and smaller ones, and that, my friends, is more than
a little curious. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

(09:39):
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it

(10:01):
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious. Yeah h