Charlotte County Florida Weekly

The gift that keeps on … eating





 

 

Black Friday is, in my opinion, madness. There are other ways to obtain Christmas gifts for your loved ones that don’t require that level of crazy. Allow me to present the traditional Florida solution.

I’m talking about mail-order citrus and other stuff (I’ll get to the “stuff” later).

What could be more appealing to your out-of-state friends than some fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice or planet-sized grapefruit? I once sent oranges to relatives in Ohio, and they loved them. They had a question for me, though. They asked since I live in Florida, why the items were marked “Product of California.” Gooood question … that I … ahem … steered away from.

In the 1970s, you would actually get citrus shipped to your door up North, delivered fresh from Florida. Some of you might even remember the little wooded slatted box meant to look like orange crates. The citrus was packed in a “naturally abundant” material, Spanish moss. Unfortunately, this vegetation also was home to little critters called chiggers.

 

 

This wasn’t known at first — but when one of the government agencies dealing with produce and citrus disease found out, this practice came to a screeching halt.

But there was still other “stuff” you could send. Like a baby alligator.

Up until the late 1960s, it was legal to purchase baby alligators and send them to your friends or relatives up North as a souvenir — albeit an eating, breathing, eating, living, eating one. I know firsthand about this because my brother sent me one.

I thought having a gator was so cool, as I already had some pet fish and turtles, too. The little gator was only about 8 inches long, and I would feed it raw hamburger as well as crickets and grasshoppers. What I did not know then is that gators grow at the rate of about a foot per year. This means that I would have the coolest pet on the block. I imagined holding the leash as I walked the big guy through the neighborhood, all the people with dogs keeping their distance. Being of early teenage years I did not think of the future much, so I figured the more I fed this little guy, the faster he would grow. And I was right.

I kept my pet gator in my upstairs bedroom at first, in kind of a washtub with the turtles (and, by now, a garter snake, too). The smell was beginning to get worse, so my parents had me move the creatures first to the basement, then the garage.

I started noticing that I had fewer and fewer turtles, as well as fewer fish in the glass tank inside the tub. I also had not seen the snake around for about a week, but I figured it just escaped and found its way back outside under the garage door.

My gator was now about 14 inches long, but pretty wide — I assume because of all the extra “food” he found. I would still feed him raw hamburger, but now he would lunge and nip the tips of my fingers.

One day I came home from school and looked in the tub — only to find the gator was gone. I thought I’d better find it before my mom did, or she would really freak out. I looked and looked but it was nowhere. It was too big to get under the garage door. Where could it be? I thought maybe it climbed the stairs to the attic? No way. I looked anyway.

Later, I saw my mom, and confessed I had lost the gator. My dad, who had just come in the door, said, “Sit down, Son. We have something to tell you.

“We decided that your pet was getting a little big for living here, and our friend said he would take him for us. So we took your alligator to live on his farm.” (Hah! How many of you have heard that one before with your own pet?)

I was dumbfounded and hurt. I went to the garage and started thinking that maybe I should go live on that farm. I started cleaning out the washtub and noticed the lack of other creatures. It hit me that the alligator really could not live here anymore. As we all know, the “farm” is a different destination for different pets that need to be “relocated.” The goldfish farm has a flush handle. Rambunctious toothy dogs have a “shelter,” and rabbits may end up in a stew.

I still like nature, but now I try to leave creatures in their natural habitat, enjoying them as they were meant to be. So as you start looking for gifts, beware of the ones that can come back to bite you — and enjoy our great outdoors.

Fair winds; calm seas. ¦

— Capt. Dennis Kirk has been traveling the Peace River since 1979. His life adventures are written from various chapters in his three decades of experience in Southwest Florida. He is part owner of the Nav-A-Gator, a riverfront restaurant and marina in Lake Suzy, just off Kings Highway. For more information, call 627- 3474.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *