Velociworld

GATOR BAIT

No, not the classic 1976 Claudia Jennings movie. That's for another day. This bait was an acquaintance of mine, who went five rounds with a nine-footer last Saturday, and got his ass beaten severely.

Seems D____, who lives on the Valley Course at Sawgrass, was in his backyard when he noticed a small dog barking furiously at an alligator down by the water's edge. Ever the hero, D____ walked down to the pond to scare off the gator. Unfortunately he slipped on the wet grass of the slope, and slid directly into the gator.

What ensued he described as a minute of sheer terror. The witnesses said it actually took them about five minutes to run around the pond to help him. This belies the myth that seconds seem like hours in these situations, I suppose. At any rate, the gator thought he was being attacked and went on the offensive. D_____ basically went into a bearhug on the beast, and used one arm to fend off the jaws. Between the flailing claws and whipping tail, D_____ was one huge purple bruise when all was said and done. The neighbors beat off fended off the brute, and D____ got some first aid. The trackers caught the gator that night: nine feet, 375 pounds. Not a monster for these parts, but a damned formidable adversary.

My advice to D____? When you see a small dog that does not belong to you and a big gator square off, you're about to witness a Wild Kingdom moment. Crack a beer, pull up a chair, and watch the spectacle of Mother Nature unfold from a safe distance. Then tell your kids all about it.