Odysseus: His Life and Times

So Erin and I were getting ready to go this morning, downloading maps of Oxnard-- Odysseus' hometown-- and the like, when my phone rang. Not recognizing the number, or even the area code, I elected not to pick up. The message went something like this:

"Hi, this is Stephanie from the Ventura County Reporter. Your mother called and told us what you were doing in Oxnard today, and someone from here would love to talk to you about it. Call me at..."

Hysteria ensued. While we contemplated what to say to this woman when we called her back, we got another call. It was another reporter. He asked me a bunch of questions about the snail, then wanted to drive out to meet us so he could document the "born free moment," as he put it. We were completely dumbfounded, and decided we had better get out to Oxnard before the 9 o'clock news called.

On the way the original woman called back. I told her we'd already talked to her colleague, Zeke, and were meeting him. We don't have a reporter named Zeke, she replied... It was two different papers. They were both driving out to meet us. We got to the industrial district of Oxnard, California, which is a really happening spot, and were met almost immediately by a caravan of four cars. A reporter and photographer from each paper. Very low brow, for our secret returning of the snail. Zeke continued to fire questions at us, and Stephanie and her photog seemed disappointed we weren't animal rights activists. We told them about the pig roast we threw, just to drive the point home. Then we started driving around looking for a field... with three cars in pursuit and Zeke in the back continuing to fire questions at us and telling us about all the grass he smoked in New Zealand when he was our age. He seemed disappointed we weren't pot-heads. No one could figure out why we were
doing this.

We found a strawberry patch and returned the snail to his natural habitat. He seemed disappointed it wasn't spinach, but overall I think he was pleased with all the attention, and he'll get to hang upside-down from real leaves again now. We crested the hill coming back to our (numerous) cars and discovered that our activity had attracted the attention of a local farm person. Shocking, I know. We quickly explained that we were just returning a snail and quickly got into the car, assuming he wasn't going to search out our erstwhile charge and dispose of him. Zeke was asking the guy a bunch of questions as we left.

So if you're ever bored in Oxnard, California, you can rest assured you're not the only one. I've included the text of one of the articles, so you don't have to sign up for the newspaper to read them. Hopefully I won't get sued. They are from California, after all. The other article isn't online yet. Sadly we forgot our cameras, so you'll have to rely on the papers. We'll try to do better next time.

We'll be flying out of LA tonight. A SUPER-HUGE thanks to Sarah for putting us up and for letting us drive her car around for two days, even to Oxnard and back.



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Snail covers a lot of ground to return home
Woman in Florida finds it in spinach, makes side trip to put it in Oxnard field

By Zeke Barlow, zbarlow@VenturaCountyStar.com
July 20, 2005

The first time Odysseus made his cross-country journey, it was most likely clinging to a spinach leaf in the back of a produce truck.

The second leg of the snail's journey was done in better style, first in a fish tank on the floorboard of a Saturn, followed by a trip in a backpack aboard a flight from Texas to California.

Tuesday, the lowly gastropod completed its epic trip home like the legend for which it was named, except the snail ended up under a strawberry plant in Oxnard, not on the Greek isles.

"He's all grown up," said Kate Loeffler West, the 22-year-old Texan who found the snail in a bag of spinach she was getting ready to steam in February.

This is a tale that spans six months, a dozen states and at least a few heads of lettuce.

West is not an animal rights activist or even a vegetarian. And though she's never eaten escargot, she said, she might try it. No, Odysseus' trip was as much about the novelty of the journey as it was returning a creature home.

West was studying at the New College of Florida in Sarasota when she was making dinner one February night.

"He just fell into my lap, or out of my spinach," she said of the snail.

She didn't want to kill it, so she put it in a bowl with some of the spinach, which had a label bearing Purepak Inc., from Oxnard, Calif. She didn't want to set it free for fear it could be some exotic snail that could wreak havoc on Florida's flora.

Indeed, unbeknownst to West, it was a brown garden snail, which are common in California but a nuisance in Florida, where officials are trying to keep them from devouring plants, said Ventura County Deputy Agricultural Commissioner David Buettner.

Odysseus, as it has come to be known, was placed in an empty fish tank, then placed atop West's computer. She and friend Erin Rodgers, 21, made up stories about Odysseus, about where it had been and its long, slimy family tree.

She wrote its name on the Oxnard produce tag.

It ate most anything, but really liked carrots. West fed it calcium for its growing shell.

Then, like a siren song, an idea hit the two.

She was headed to New Zealand for a year with Rodgers, flying out of Los Angeles. The two could take Odysseus home.

And so the snail went into West's car, through Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and into the Texas hill country, eventually into a small Tupperware container, through airport X-ray machines in Texas and into LAX.

On Tuesday, with a Thomas Guide on the dashboard, the two found the address of the farm where it all started. They had e-mailed the company to see if it wanted the snail back. They got no reply.

But the Sturgis Road address they had was the shipping headquarters.

No fields were near.

They drove a ways down the road to a small, dust-bitten patch of strawberries.

"This looks good," West said.

Without ceremony or emotion, they placed Odysseus under the dappled shade of a strawberry plant. Just beyond the fence, a man was grading a plot of land that will soon be pavement.

"Can I help you guys?" the man asked as the two women headed back to their car.

"No," West said. "We're just putting a snail back where it belongs."

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