DAILY BREEZE (Torrance, Califronia) 10 August 07 Cold, idiotic, deadly, scaly, lovable alligators - and Reggie - At least the South Bay appreciates its gator. (John Bogert)
Here's an eye-catching quote from a recent Associated Press story.
"The alligator lessons are being taught on TV now, people can see them in their own homes. So that's the positive side," stated veteran alligator wrestler James Peacock of the Native Village outside of Hollywood, Fla. "The negative side is, did I waste the last 17 years of my life learning how to do this?"
Believe me, as a print newspaper guy, I understand his question. I really do.
And as someone who grew up not far from the Native Village, a dive of a tourist trap in South Florida, I can also say that I am appalled by the ever-increasing sophistication and worldliness of the American tourist.
Once no wintry-skinned snowbird out of South Jersey, New York or Quebec could say that their trip to Dixie's fake Polynesia was complete unless they saw an actual, semi-actual or downright pretend Seminole or Miccosukee (the original Florida inhabitants) wrestle an alligator in a smelly, cement-ribbed dirt pit.
This was Florida before the sprawl, Florida where anybody with a two-headed calf, a pet anaconda and sometimes nothing at all could hang a sign telling motorists that just around the next verdant bend there was free ice water (all you can drink) waiting and something so fantastic that it had to be been seen to be believed.
You know: "See The Fountain of Youth. - It's Amazing."
It never was, and all you could drink usually meant some yokel pouring a cup and saying, "That's all you can drink."
Ha!
Personally, I loved that now-vanished Florida, and still I never take the family there on vacation without visiting one of the last vestiges of that bygone era, the Native Village - formerly the Seminole Indian Village - which is an acre behind a cement floor souvenir shop stocked with coconut and shell junk from China and featuring live things yanked from the nearby Everglades. There are bobcats, snakes, a variety of taloned birds, viciously beaked turtles, chewy American crocodiles and - the stars of the forlorn attraction - a gaggle of sleepy alligators.
It's a wonderfully low-rent Jurassic Park with the overriding lesson being this - anything that lives in the great, grassy, slow-flowing river that is the Everglades will kill you without a second thought or - in the case of alligators - no thought at all.
Seriously, if you want nicer, more picturesque nature, stay in California. Better yet, don't leave L.A. County. Even better, stay in the South Bay, where it's safe as long as you don't try to pull a heist in Torrance.
But now to the problem. Tourists are no longer visiting the Native Village, where, by the way, the wrestlers are no longer Indians because Indians now own huge nearby casinos.
The last time I was there, the wrestlers were a pair of starved and frightened, risk-averse Cuban immigrants who seemed less than pleased with this reptilian version of boundless American opportunity.
I couldn't fault them since the crowd, counting my three children and me, numbered exactly four. And heavy sympathy-tipper that I am, it couldn't return the operation to a time when a man in a colorful Seminole shirt could make $500 a day thrilling rubes from the north.
Actually, nobody actually wrestles gators because the things will tumble you into the water and kill you. They are stupid, casually vicious, pea-brained chomping machines incapable of learning or loving, which makes the obvious affection Janice Hahn had for our own Reggie so sweetly one-sided. That's sort of like me genuinely liking the councilwoman whether she likes me or not. Gator tricks, meanwhile, are fairly routine. An alligator won't, for instance, slam shut its killing jaws unless something touches the inside of its mouth. That's because his eyes can't see directly ahead with his mouth open and his eyes are directed skyward.
So a steady hand will probably remain an uneaten hand. Their mouths are gravity operated as well, so holding the great jaws closed with a chin or even two fingers is no real feat of daring if you are crazy enough to pit yourself against one of these idiot dinosaurs to begin with.
On the upside of this end-of-a-cheesy-era gloom is Reggie - our cast off, highly elusive but somehow still lovable Machado Lake gator - who got star treatment with a fancy new pool Thursday in L.A. Zoo ceremonies.
And it's an out-front pool, making Reggie once again a prime attraction, sort of like the South Bay's own reptilian King Kong, the mystical dragon in sweet captivity lazing in the summer warmth, waiting for chicken parts, happy finally in a place where gators are still appreciated.
Cold, idiotic, deadly, scaly, lovable alligators