I was driving home from work late at night. it was raining and steam was
coming off the asphault ( sounds like a novel) . I thought I saw a medium
sized dog crossing the road, it was too late to miss it so I thought I
would straddle it with my truck. At the same time I considered this I
noticed this was not a dog but a snapper, and if it wouldnt have been
crossing the road diagonally, I swore i would have hit its nose and the tip
of its tail with opposite tires.
The other one : I was crappie fishing under the dam on a nice day .
There were some "city slickers" ( no offense anyone, you'll find out why I
called them this in a minute) catching Pike the weekend before opening day
for them. This was annoying me, plus the fact they had over their limit of
5 per person. not only that, they were very nice fish. At any rate, a
huge snapper with a shell atleast 3 foot across surfaced in the middle of
the " lagoon" off the side of cranberry creek. Its tail stuck up behind
that a bit, and it stuck its big head out of the water, looked around, then
sank with a big swirl amidst a lot of bubbles. The man and woman looked
horrified and asked me what it was. I said " That my friend was a northern
gator." I went on fishing and the man said, "alligators dont live around
here". I said" they sure do". He said, "well if that was an alligator
why did it have that big thing on its back?" I said," that was the
northern variety and it protects them from the cold in the winter". I
added that in fact they were quite common around here and they shouldn't
leave all those fish on a stringer in the water, less the " gator" would
come up and after them, see the people and decide one big meal was better
than several smaller ones. suddenly they hauled up there gear, stuck it in
there camper and left.
I must have been qutie convincing, since I was about 14 at the time, and
the couple seemed in their mid twenties. That is the reason I did not
confront them about the fish, and when the situtation of the turtle came
up, i thought it might work. I figured what would it hurt? the worst thing
would be the guy could call me a stupid kid. if I would have confronted
him about catching all the fish I planned to catch the next weekend, I may
have found out that that " gator" wanted a large meal.
I know that sounds too funny to be true, but it was, I only wish I had had
a friend along to witness it.
Ray
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