Our Neighborhood Gator

Neighborhood Gator

A CARLYLE NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIGATOR TALE

By Bob Flanagan

Alligator Wrestler/Hunter/Trainer/Tamer

Late on a Tuesday afternoon, I was watering the yard of my neighbor, Katherine, who was out of town. After a few minutes, I noticed a car had stopped in front of her house. That's when I saw a six-foot plus alligator in the middle of the street in front of the car! He was crossing our street, heading next door toward Katherine's neighbor Celso's driveway. I hurried home (heavy on the hurried),  grabbed my camera and alerted Gwynn, and Ann Mueller, our houseguest.

Gwynn ran down to Jerry's house (next door to Celso on the other side) and told Jerry to warn Celso that an alligator was in his garage.

At first, the alligator layed down on Celso's driveway for a few minutes. Then he decided to go into the garage, and crawled under Celso's car! By this time, most of the neighbors were out on the street watching the action.

Celso managed to chase the alligator out of the garage, and he headed toward Katherine's house. He walked across her driveway, up the sidewalk, and marched right to her front door! Then he crawled under the bench on Katherine's front porch.

Kevin (who lives across the street) went home, got a long pole and prodded the alligator. He began moving toward my house! Once he was between the two houses, he apparently saw or sensed the creek in the back of our houses. He ran very quickly down Katherine's back sidewalk and dived into the water.

That's the last we saw of him!

I've included some pictures below. If they seem to have been shot from rather long-range - that was on purpose!