The Story of Myrtle & Bud Ekins

Myrtle is a California desert tortoise and my beloved pet. I met her when I was 19 while living in Nichols Canyon. She belonged to my neighbor, Bud Ekins, a legendary Hollywood stuntman and world-champion motorcycle racer. He was best known in the film industry for his unprecedented 65-foot motorcycle jump, doubling Steve McQueen in the ‘Great Escape’.

 

Bud’s professional motorcycle days began in the1950s. Over the course of his racing career, he won or placed in dozens of major regional, national, and international off-road motorcycle events. It was during one of those races in the Mojave Desert, sometime between 1954 and 1959, that he met and rescued Myrtle.

 

The story as I remember  it - was that Bud was about nine minutes ahead of the other racers when he saw a baby turtle on the track. As an oddly compassionate man knowing that she was going to be killed when the rest of the riders came through, he stopped his bike – got off, picked up the palm-size turtle, put her in his jacket pocket, and the two of them went on to win the race. Yes, you got that right … Myrtle is also a world-champion motocross winner!

 

Bud ended up taking Myrtle home that day, where she lived on the inner patio of his three-story, Hollywood Spanish abode for the next 50ish years. I lived across the street from the Ekins and met Myrtle in the summer of 1974. She was quite social and wanted to hang out with us teenage girls as we listened to music and sunbathed in what was essentially Myrtle’s courtyard garden. Mostly we were all afraid of her and would giggle and scream when she got close to our feet. I now know that’s how tortoises explore and get to know people – she was so curious.

 

When Bud died in 2007, at the request of his daughters, Susan and Donna, I adopted Myrtle. Our first few years together were about getting to know each other’s personalities and habits. To my surprise, she enjoyed being massaged and hanging out with me, or my friends. Soon my neighbors and clients, along with their children, would stop by to visit Myrtle. They would sit in the garden with her … where they loved to watch her eat.

 

I was familiar with the healing abilities of service animals but never thought of a tortoise as a creature that would fall into that category. However, watching people’s body language when they were around her, I realized that Myrtle had a gift for healing people’s emotional states. Some of them were initially afraid of her (like I once was), but after spending some time with her, their fear would dissipate. Watching and interacting with her brought them into the present moment — like a meditation — which appeared to have a calming effect and produce a greater sense of well-being. To this day, she continues to have that effect on people.

 

I wrote about Myrtle in my book, Walking A Friend Home: A Practical Guide to Consciously Living & Dying, referencing the many life lessons I’ve learned from her, including about death. This is a small excerpt from ‘Chapter 8 – Animals as Healers and Teachers’ which will give you a few more insights into our journey together.

 

Hibernation — A Lesson About Death and Rebirth

 

In addition to Ms. Myrtle’s relaxing effect on people (and the neighborhood cats), she has also taught me a lot about the cycle of life. In the fall of our first year together, when she started preparing for hibernation, I thought something was wrong with her. She stopped eating and drinking and rarely came out. Her eyes glazed over, and she wasn’t responding to my voice or our guests anymore. I thought I had failed as a tortoise mom and that she was sick, or worse, dying.

 

Fearing the latter, I called the tortoise society, where they reassured me that her behavior was quite normal as she prepared for hibernation. Her body and organs would slowly shut down over two months, eventually settling into a sleep state where she remained quiet and motionless until the spring when her spirit re-emerged into the same body — a rebirth of sorts.

 

Watching Ms. Myrtle’s annual hibernation period, I saw how similar it was to a human’s process of the cycle of life and a soul’s release for future incarnations. The experience offered me a new sense of insight and acceptance around death. End excerpt.

 

Since we moved to the Midwest, Myrtle has developed a whole new fan club of curious visitors and adopted aunties who live a few doors down. They come and take her in a stealth red wagon for playdates to their beautiful lush yard and spoil her with blueberries and watermelon.

 

Myrtle has her own condo in the backyard with a carport-style overhang; she loves fruit and veggie salads, company, being massaged, sitting in meditation next to humans, morning yoga, walking in the rain, digging holes, and eating yellow dandelion flowers.

 

Copyright Photos of Bud Ekins used with permission of Susie and Donna Ekins

 

This link is to an interview with Bud telling backstories of being a Hollywood stuntman – in typical Ekins humor. https://tinyurl.com/4vkemfuf

 

CBS News about Bud – ‘Famed “Great Escape” Stuntman Ekins Dead’ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/famed-great-escape-stuntman-ekins-dead/