GUEST BLOGGERS TELL THE GATOR TALE

Actual Picture of Gators Coming After Their Supper

The Adventures of Conville Dundee

It was a beauty. A big momma gator covered in duckweed. A real man-eater to be sure. She had never met Conville Dundee and she would remember their meeting. With the stealth only a financial counselor who has been through the last six months could muster, ole’ Conville Dundee swaggered into the enclosure that held 20+ BIG gators. Upon hearing his entry, their eyes all turned toward him. More than 40 beady eyes began to follow Conville Dundee as he strode down the steep embankment to the water. He was jovial as they approached the water’s edge. Five gators from 8 to 10 feet long with just their noses out on the dry land. Conville Dundee was not shaken, in fact, he was almost defiant. He walked back and forth while his grands watched in awe from just outside the fence. LC handed the camera over so that Dundee could pose for a photo within mere feet of the hungry group. The grands were impressed! After all, here was their grandpa Dundee before them almost taunting the man-eaters. What incredible bravery. Helen spoke in a near panicked stern tone, “Ya’ll get away from there.” She paced and commanded to her own, “No, you may not go in there.” Conville Dundee began to strut looking like a small Musollini.Apparently it was this action that just struck Big Momma wrong. She is obviously not a fan of the former dictator. Italian Alligator purses and shoes probably didn’t help either.Big Momma raised up and Conville Dundee demonstrated his incredible balance and nimbleness! He shucked, slipped, regained his balance, jived, staggered again and then leaped to safety. The collection of people held their collective breath until they could see Dundee safely out of harms way and then erupted with laughter. As he came near us we could feel the warmth of his glowing red scalp. There was some concern about a snap heard during his deft escape. As we discussed the brush with death, it was postured that the snap was not from any bones but was most likely the sound of an orifice on Dundee snapping tightly closed. If you see Conville Dundee, Momma Gator was about a 10 footer and probably not the 25 footer he may claim.

Rebuttal

Torn from the jaws of death.

Many tales are spun from the safety of the writer's keyboard or the photographers lens, however, very few are called to actually stare down danger and live to speak truth. Often we've heard of these timid, safety consumed sorts, who have never faced fear, and yet have endless stories of feats larger than life. But I digress, except to say the jaws of death does not refer to verbal assertions.

"The pond was angry that day my friend", as I remember the virtual boiling cauldron of imminent threat. The half dozen or more, twenty five foot monsters, strutted confidently from their sanctuary onto the narrow beachhead. The beach strewn with remainders of past feasts, these prehistorical giants eased past bones and feathers and beaks as they charged their greatly underestimated prey. With his head signaling his defiance with the only color available, flaming red, the willing gladiator, readied himself for the jaws of death, to the amazement of all of the onlookers, who were captivated from the distant, high, and safe hill.

I laughed in the face of danger has I leaped from snapping snout to snapping snout each containing rows of razor sharp, bone crunching teeth, and made my way gallantly into the awaiting crowd of awestruck onlookers. Without regard for personal safety, I could only concentrate on the the young, the elderly, and small and less brave of our number. So I began the fearless task of riding those "big boys" back into the swamp they came from, rendering them helpless and removing them from being a danger to civilized man ever again. The collective gasp, we have heard so much about, was in reality, the mutual and utter amazement in the face of such certain death. No doubt each in their own way, sought to revel in, or perhaps diminish, such heroics.

I then leave the reader to query their own depth of fear and bravery and victory as they relive this tale of grandness and courage.