T - 435 And

     

Not much to say about today except another cold day with spirit. I had spirit today too. I thought about September 2010 when my friend Jason, his son, and I were returned to dock by airboat from a ride in the everglades of Southern Florida. There was an 18 inch alligator in a large tank that I asked to hold. While holding the alligator I told the airboat captain what happened when I was surveying through the swamps of Southern Louisiana; south of even Thibodeau.  "In the morning, on the way into where the survey line was, we had to walk through a slough. This slough consisted of mid waist deep water. The tricky part was that the swamp weeds, including floating lilies with air sacks growing along their stems, was a mass of mess of roots which extended into the water to the depth of of about our groins, and God only knows what was beneath that to the muddy bottom. We had to cut our way through this with machetes. While on the walk through this in the morning the party chief (lead surveyor, aka PC) mentioned that he scared off a baby alligator or two. I told him that I was disappointed I didn't get to see them and asked him to snag one by the tail on the way out. He said he would. That afternoon, true to his work he snatched a baby alligator (about the same size as the one Sept. 2010 in Fl.) by its tail while the two other crew members and I watch from feet away. The baby 'gator made squeaking noises and the momma 'gator replied with bull frog sounding grunts. This chorus echoed two or three times.  The PC released the baby 'gator and not since Jesus' time has man walked on water like that day in Louisiana."  The airboat captain said; "You did what? And you are standing here telling me about it. You should be dead!" I asked if he was kidding me. He showed me the alligator teeth punch holes in his arm that he had earned while alligator wrestling and said no.

Damn ironic part is my friend Jason read in the paper around a year later that an alligator had bitten this same guys arm off.

My year of swamp surveying experiences is a definite plus in knowing how to reach deep to accomplish something.  More adventures from my swamp time at a later date because there are all of the cottonmouth stories I might share. A machete is a pretty good tool to neutralize one of them with. And then there is the time when I was in knee deep water and one... And there was the time I ran after a rattler trying to liberate his rattles... And then...