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EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:
Gator Land, - A Strong Argument For Not Breeding
From Parris Island, my parents decided to go south to Florida to
visit family and friends. While there, we made a stop at “Gator
Land,” a place with lots of crocodiles and, of course,
alligators where kept for the enjoyment of tourist to view.
There were
gators and crocs of all sizes. The game park workers saw to the
care and feeding of them and even the little baby gators would
leap out of the water to grab chunks of raw chicken. Gator Land
also had an assortment of other types of animals: monkeys,
parrots, snakes, turtles, raccoons, hawks, et cetera.
At the end of
the row of cages was a pit with a concrete wall surrounding it.
The wall was approximately four feet high where I was standing
and roughly five feet in height from the bottom of the pit.
Looking in, I saw the largest stuffed crocodile I had ever laid
eyes on.
I knew it had
to be stuffed for two reasons. One was that the croc was sixteen
to seventeen feet long, the jaws about three feet wide at the
base and it looked to weigh about twenty-five hundred pounds. It
was simply too big to be real.
The eyes on the
croc were closed and I could not discern any breathing along the
flanks.
The second
reason was that the owners of the park kept the croc in a simple
walled pit that any idiot could easily fall or jump into.
Surely, I reasoned, they would not keep a live croc in such a
pit, with the potential liability and all that would entail.
I looked at the
crocodile, at its impossible size and the utter lack of
movement, as well as the ridiculously easy accessibility to the
pit. In my minds eye, I regressed back to the time as a kid, I
was staring at the evil Carolina sow across the hot wire.
I was
mesmerized by the obviously stuffed croc and the ease of
touching it. I wanted to touch it. I had to touch
it.
I had a vision
of me lying on the stuffed crocodile’s back with one arm around
its stuffed neck and the other waving gaily at anyone who wanted
to take a picture. “That picture would look cool hanging over
my mom’s fireplace mantel,” I thought.
That thought
deepened my conviction and now I
really
had to touch it. I looked left and right, as I didn’t want
anyone other than my family to observe me breaking the rules. I
was sure they wouldn’t understand my desire to pose on top of
their giant stuffed croc.
Perhaps they
wanted tourists to think it was real and were afraid that, if
some bold soul such me leaped in and laid on it, it would queer
the awe this exhibit instilled in the herd of people who were
not nearly as perceptive as myself.
To accomplish
my task, I had to position my hips over the top of the wall,
taking my feet completely off of the ground. This caused me to
teeter a bit and, because I did not want to commit myself,
I tentatively
and quickly reached out to touch the croc on the end of the
snout. Nothing!
“Ah hah”,
I thought, “not a twitch from the stuffed beast!”
I continued to
be intrigued and wanted to hit it harder so leaned in further,
my teetering becoming more precarious. I hit the croc in the
snout with even greater force, pulling back quickly. Still
nothing.
I was feeling
pretty smug with my discovery that Gator Land was scamming all
the park patrons with a stuffed croc instead of the real McCoy.
I wasn’t one to be fooled by God. I wasn’t your typical run of
the mill rube, no siree, Bob! I had an eye for the real animals
and felt pretty heady and arrogant from my worldly intelligence.
Now I had the overpowering urge to punch the snout, so leaned
over much further this time.
To get close, I
positioned my self with my hips over the wall so that I
was suspended mostly over the pen. I reached out and belted the
stuff snout with all the strength I could muster, from such a
precarious position. Whack!! With heart stopping and blinding
speed, the stuffed croc whipped its head around with jaws wide
open. I nearly fell into the pen.
Blind animal
terror galvanized my body, enabling me to magically throw myself
backwards in a Spiderman maneuver that caused my back and head
to slam against the pavement so violently, that it caused my
teeth to snap shut so hard, that had my tongue been between
them, I’m sure I would have bitten it clean through.
During my
backwards jackknife, the crocodile’s jaws slammed shut, with a
great snapping noise and twenty-five hundred pounds of pressure
all of which barely missed my arm.
I was not on my
back for more than a split second before I jumped up like a cat,
looking all around and hoping no one was witness to the
monstrous folly I had involved myself in.
Two emotions
were warring within me and I wasn’t certain, which mattered more
at the moment: surviving being a meal or avoiding public
humiliation.
I felt I had
gotten a reprieve. Many times I think back to all my mishaps and
think that it’s probably as well that I have never reproduced.
The DNA that had designed and normally controlled me was
doubtless disappointed by the lack of intelligence that I had
just displayed.
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(GENESIS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(EXODUS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(REVELATIONS)
MOST PEOPLE TALK BULLSHIT:
One Primate's Search For Intelligent Life
(JUDGMENT DAY)
THE MARINES: GOD'S CHOSEN
WARRIORS
VINCE'S GYM
CONVERSATIONS WITH NEO
NEO TEACHES ME THE ART OF WAR
& PEACE;
His Version of The Matrix
MEMORIES OF MY FATHERS
ZEN & THE ART OF RESISTANCE
TRAINING:
A Yogic & Scientific Approach To Weight
Lifting
ZEN & THE BIOLOGY OF
TRANSCENDENCE:
The First Matrix of Psychic
Phenomena
ZEN & THE ART OF KINESIOLOGY:
The Yogic & Scientific
Approach To Movement
ZEN & YOUR ENERGY SYSTEMS
ZEN & VARIOUS ASPECTS OF
TRAINING
HOMEPAGE TO ADVENTURES IN MARINE BIOLOGY
HOMEPAGE |
