Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/401545
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 6 6 Terry showed back up at my place with mud and scratches sufficient to allay disbelief. "Now ain't you glad," I asked, "I didn't have no Bud in cans?" I had my share of rodeos too, necessitating an occasional change of skivvies but never medical attention. I tried to shoot a middling gator off my dog with a Smith and Wesson 38, but the hammer spur hung up in my jeans and I been toting shrouded hammers ever since. I had a bull come at me in the New River marsh, not far from where Joe Maffo sprung Big Al. Burrup, burrup, he said, like a giant toothy bullfrog, like a chainsaw out of gas. And then the juncus cane started moving like the wake from a torpedo. I couldn't see my own feet much less that gator, but I slipped the safety and got ready to shoot, even if it were between my knees. The gator had second thoughts about two seconds and ten feet out, passed me in a great rush and plunged into the creek. I never saw him but judged him full grown by the splash he made. T hanks to micro-chips and satellite tracking, we know a lot more about gators than we used to, maybe more than we want to. Dipping in the ocean or a salt creek? Keep your eyes peeled. They're out there too. If you ever thought you could get shut of a gator by climbing a tree, forget it. Given motive and opportunity, a gator can climb any tree you can. Fence your yard with chain link? A gator can climb that too. Gators have been known to get up on a front porch and ring the doorbell, but micro-chips and satellites can't explain that. Neither can I. And no, I ain't making any of this up. And they home, just like pigeons. Years ago my Jasperite Cousin Jack wrangled a dozen or so, hauled