See ya later...

I was just about over the stunning outcome of the college football championship, in which my beloved Alabama Crimson Tide came up short against the Clemson Tigers. I have no doubt that next year at this time, the natural order of superiority will return, and 'Bama will once again parade around with the crown.

But in the meantime, there's this alligator...

In Hanahan, South Carolina, there is a pond where dwells an orange alligator.

And you ask why I don't want to move anywhere. I like to walk around my neighborhood after dark, and while I can deal with deer, dogs, foxes and an occasional surly cat crossing my path, there is something about alligators and crocodiles that brings out my atavistic fear of being consumed like a four-piece chicken box by some dinosaur-like creature.

Some down that way are saying the alligator is orange because he is a Clemson fan. I have to wonder about that, because I checked Map-A-Rama, and find that there's a distance of 203.05 miles from Hanahan to Clemson as the crow flies, and 230.67 miles by car.

And of course, no alligator needs to roam a couple hundred miles away in search of food, when there are always golfers people right close by.  I can't see one hopping on a Greyhound bus, although I can see one hopping on a greyhound.


Local Hanahanians say this beast is about 4 or 5 feet long, and currently residing in a retention pond in the Tanner Plantation community. 

They should hope that retention pond lives up to its name.

Jay Butfiloski with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources says that maybe this creature spent the winter in a rusty steel pipe and got the orangeness that way.  

People versed in the ways of nature point out that alligators shed their skin every year, when the new spring line comes out, so look for that murky green brown 'gator look as soon as he can get to Nordstrom and do some shopping.