Plaid seat and a rattan back again, but this time with a snake and a gator.

I think it was not George and I think it was not Kenny. I know there were 3 brothers and I remember 2 names. So we shall call him Luc, for Little Unnamed Child. He was the youngest and always wanted to tag along with us. Coolness attracts groupies, what could we say?

Luc went with us to the Alafia River one day. He was small and not completely uncute I suppose, but a real pain in the butt. He was hot. He was tired. He was thirsty. He wanted to know how much further. Shut up, dude!

So we get to the boat ramp and 7 of 8 of us dive right in. Guess who's scared to swim in the river? Yep, Luc. After much pleading and coaxing and promising not to leave him to bloat in the sun if he drowned, we got him swimming. Once he was halfway across we allowed, quite vocally, as how it would be plain stupid to turn around now (even though it would save him from having to swim back later) because it was just as far to go back as to come over.

So he did it, he came over. He climbed the bank and stood next to the tree all proud like he'd done something other than swim a small river. Then we climbed the tree.

Oh my goodness, ol' Luc needed a whole new round of persuading to climb the tree. What the heck?!? Boys climb trees. What was Luc's problem here? Short story from a longer one, we eventually got him up in the tree limbs, perched like a petrified vulture over the river.

1...2...3... JUMP! and down we all went. All but Luc who just sat there humming to himself. Humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like whimpering, although I gave him the benefit of the doubt on it.

Three times we demonstrated the jump and swim and three times Luc missed the cue. Must have been a pretty long song he was humming, maybe the album version of Free Bird.

So we're back up in the tree explaining, coaxing, reasoning, threatening, mocking and ridiculing him in an honest attempt to get him to participate in the great fun we were having.

Another long story shortened goes like this:
"1...2...3... Jump! ... ... 4... 5... 6... Jump, buttwipe ... ... 7... 8... If you don't jump, we'll push you ... ...9 .... Luc... 10 ... We will push you ... 11..." and dang if ol' Luc didn't push off from the tree limb.

So as soon as his toes left the bark I yelled "SNAKE!!". It was hilarious. Luc left fingernail claw marks in the air. Looked like Wylie Coyote going off a cliff. We nearly died laughhing. Never got Luc back up in the tree. And that, my peeps, is the snake story. Don't even have a snake in it.

The gator story is much less hilarious. Too bad Burt Reynolds is getting old. He'd be perfect to play me in the movie version of my life. I'm deboner like he is.

So by now you're familiar with the ride to the river and the boat ramp and the swim across the river. You have been introduced to the tree. So let's pick it up there. By the way, did you notice the stick people picture yesterday? It was called "Men Without Shirts". Fit the tale perfectly, did it not?

So we are up in the tree jumping out and swinging off. We are splashing and laughing and moon bombing the occasional canoeist. It is a grand time. We kinda noticed the old palm tree trunk slowly floating by just over halfway across the river, but it was too far to land on, so we ignored it.

We kept on a playing and all until, directly across from us maybe 20-25 yards, some ducks who had been swimming peacefully commenced to quack quacking and raising hell and trying to fly on short notice. Now ducks are not particularly graceful under ideal conditions, so short notice flight is plain ugly to behold.

"Hmmm... what could be going on?", our young, analytical minds wondered. About then the palm tree trunk swished it's tail and opened it amazingly large (for a palm tree anyway) mouth and again lunged at the ducks. "Why that's no tree trunk", we surmised. "It's a gator."

Now that did not scare us particularly as we were all in agreeance that alligators aren't up for eating boys all that often and we were also almost unanimous in our belief that they could not climb trees. The one dissenting vote swears he just wanted to err on the side of caution and I guess I can respect that.

But now we were in a pickle. Just like you don't dangle a cream puff in front of a Jerry Springer fan, you don't tempt a gator with a delectible lunch of tender, mostly white meat that can't swim fast. You know, us.

And furthermore, allowing for the fact that we can't swim fast and that large reptile can, how long does he need to have been out of sight before we feel it is safe to swim back across? Now the answers to that second part varied greatly from "I'd say a half hour or so" to "Let's call mom to come get us."

As you know, because you are reading this blog 28 or so years later, long after I would have been gator poop should I have been mauled and eaten, we made it back and went on with our exciting and very fulfilling lives. I tell ya, it sure is a shame ol' Burt keeps gettin older. He'd be perfect, I tell you.

Oh yeah, after safely crossing the river and heading home, we all realized that with our various moms' tendencies to overreact to flesh eating predators that are hard to spot, we'd do just as well not to relate the story back home. Lest we not be swimming there again.

I sold nothin' yesterday. But I made some appointments for next week. And I did get $15. The fifteen bucks was pretty easy. After I dropped my partner off at his house at the end of the day I said, "Hey, gmme $15 for gas."

65 lbs per sq in bursting strength... and out
Ramblin' Ed