Hank The Gator

If you've ever travel to Charleston, South Carolina and you find a beautiful river feeding into a small lake and you decide – wow that will be a great place for a swim – you need to keep in mind that Florida ain’t the only place with gators!

Born and raised in the Atlanta area I had very little interaction with alligators, however, there was this one time when I was about seven – a friend of mine's father for some reason brought one home from a business trip, and I got to hold it. It was about seven inches long and his name was Smiley,

I wonder why...

Anyway my friend Mike was playing with Smiley and for some reason he thought it would be a grand idea to hold Smiley real close to his face and stick his tongue in and out real fast and to touch Smiley's nose with each flick of his tongue.

Apparently Smiley didn't like this worth a damn.

After about four flicks of Mike’s tongue Smiley had just about enough and he caught Mike with an inbound flick. Now gators are born with a full set of tiny very sharp teeth – just ask Mike how many.

Mike started running in circles and trying to scream but that’s a hard thing to do when you have a gator hanging off your tongue, but you still can run. Mike ran upstairs to show his Mom and Dad his new trick but they didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did.

That happens a lot when your seven.  They managed to get the gator off Mike’s tongue, and he ended up getting a couple of stitches......Mike not the gator, but we never did know what happen to that gator. He just disappeared.

Getting back to Charleston – in an earlier post I told you a little about the security at the Charleston base. I'm not going into great detail because I love my country and I don't want to give anybody any ideas because you never know who's reading your stuff.

It was summer, it was hot and I was in a secure area way back in the woods locked in a cage for three days. This was a VERY secure area.  There was only one gate in and one gate out, and it was the same gate. We knew where everyone was. If the Officer of the Day wanted to come snooping around we knew he was there. We had different codes on our radios that only we could understand. If you said a certain thing on the radio on code every Marine working at that time would know the Officer of the Day was in the area so you better put your shirt back on or stop doing whatever he might not like.

This was a Saturday.  I know this because there were very few if any civilian employees in the area. I was on duty in the guard house, and that was okay with me because the guard house had the radio room and all of the alarm censors and the monitors – so it was air conditioned. This was your normal day at work until I heard the truck slide to a stop on front of the guard house and Wild Bill came busting in. 

Bill yelled "COME ON.....I GOT SOMETHING GOOD!" Having known Bill for about a year by then I knew this could be anything. Bill asked me to get him a rope – we need a rope. I said we don't have a rope.   He followed that with some sort of statement that said we need something for sure.....

I looked up.  Hanging on the wall was our rifle rack holding 12-15 M16 rifles.  In order to secure them we had a one-third inch or so braided steel cable with a two- inch loop at each end to lock it to the wall. Bill unlocked it and said, “This will work, come on!”

We ran out and jumped in his truck and headed out. When I asked what was going on Bill said, “You're gonna love this.  We’re gonna have so much fun!”

 Bill had been out checking locks and just driving around. When you check locks you check all of the locks. There was a good size creek that ran through the area we were in and most of it was underground because the area we were in was built over this creek. Where this creek came in and where this creek came out of our area was always of great interest to us. There were eight- inch reinforced concrete walls about four feet high on both sides of the creek and connected to the walls itself was a very heavy steel grate with a heavy steel gate that went into the water and was secured at the base underwater.

From the road you were looking down about a fifteen foot hill to the creek and the gate. The bars on the grate were about two and half inches apart so you could see in the water.  They were also wide enough to let water and small fish through but not much else. 

I know this is a very technical description, but I want you to get the picture.

We parked at the top of the hill and headed down.  We climbed over a wall and on to the grate.  As we approached the creek I could tell the water was pretty deep and very dark, but sure enough you could see the top of a gator snout sticking up about three feet from the grate.  We were standing on the grate right above him, but it was too dark to tell how big he was. 

 

Now – here’s where the stupid stuff starts.

We were both young, quick and strong and – we were MARINES.

Nothing could happen to us.

Bill unlocked the gate and put one end of that cable through the other to make a noose.Then he put the cable in the water at the end of the grate and told me to put my hand in the water and move it around and see if the gator would come after it.  

I said "Do what?!?”

Bill told me to put my hand in the water and wave it around again.

I said, “Why don’t YOU stick your hand down there.”

Wild Bill used simple logic telling me he was holding the cable.   So, like a dumb ass I put my hand in that black water to try to entice an alligator to come to my hand. That just sounds wrong even typing it, but that's what I did. After about 30 seconds he started moving closer to my hand. I could only reach out about two feet from the grate so there was not a lot of room for error. He swam straight for my hand and right through the cable. 

Bill yelled NOW!!!

I jerked my hand out at the same time Bill pulled the cable tight around the gators neck – his really big neck,  and he was not happy about it. Not at all, Bill is pulling and yelling, I'm trying NOT to fall in the creek. Bill and I got a good hold on the cable and started to pull the gator out of the water.

We pulled and he came….

and came....

and came. He just kept coming up out of that dark, deep water.

He was just under 8 foot long and we guessed 350 to 400 pounds and REALLY pissed off.

We got him up on the grate with us and that seemed to make him even madder – if that was possible.  About that time Bill jumps up on the wall leaving me and Hank on the grate....Yes I named it Hank.

Lucky for me Bill still had the other end of the cable. That was the point when I asked Bill, “Okay, now what do we do?”

Bill told me we were going to take him to the guard house, and for some reason at the time  that sounded like a good idea. Bill had the gators nose up against the wall so I thought I was on the safe end. I reached down and picked the gator up holding his tail.

I happened to weight about 200 pounds at the time, and that gator – Hank – whipped  me around like I was nothing. I managed to hang on long enough to toss Hank up on the grass with Bill. We were all three surprised that I had done that. Bill started pulling the big gator up the hill to the truck, but he didn't have to pull long because that big boy raised up and started up that hill on his own moving very fast.

 I yelled "RUN BILL!!!!”, but he already was running.

He made it to the truck just a few feet before the gator and dove in the back. Bill was still holding on to the  gator leash,  and that was a good thing since  I didn't want to have to catch him in the open field. Bill climbed out of the truck with the gator pulled tight against the tire. I made it to the top of the hill and grabbed his tail again.

Hank’s tail….not Bill’s

I was pushing and Bill was pulling and we got that gator in the back of that truck.

It was a slow ride back to the guard shack, and we planned the whole way just what we were going to do. 
 

Well when we got back there were only two other guys there. We pulled Hank out of the truck and brought him into the guard house. We shoved Hank into the bathroom and spent the rest of the day telling people not to go in the bathroom cause there was a gator in there and one by one they went in anyway and came out with a yell.

There was only one casualty that day.  One of the guys kept sticking his boot on Hank’s nose over and over until Hank grabbed the boot and bit holes through it. 

I’m just glad the owner’s foot wasn’t in it at the time.

We kept Hank until Sunday afternoon and decided to take him to a pond on the other side of the base and let him go, but you know – some things never change. 

I don't care if it's a seven inch long gator or a seven foot long gator you keep sticking something in its face it's gonna bite it – every time.

Kung Fu Masters.....Not!

The time was the mid to late 70's and the world was in love with Kung Fu. There were TV shows, movies, books, plays, toys, lunch boxes and Bruce Lee's death was still fresh in the mind of the world.

Kung Fu was king and I was in the Marine Corps enjoying life with my buddy Wild Bill.  As I said in another post Wild Bill was a little nuts….Okay, he was fully nuts but he was sure fun to be around.

 Like I said before Bill was a highly decorated Vietnam veteran with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. Bill and I also had something else in common besides being from the south and liking sweet tea. You see Bill and I were both Recon Marines.

The Marine Recon is our version of "Special Forces" only better because we were Marines.....Well don't you think that if the Navy, Army, or Air Force "Special Forces" had the chance to be a Marine "Special Forces" they would jump at it?

Well they can't, they aren’t Marines. And they ask themselves all of their life....."I wonder if I could have made it in the Marines?” Well now that I've pissed off half of the readers, I'll carry on. I was joking....kind of....okay maybe half way.

It's a Marine thing.

We trained in the hot California sun and climbed mountains and swam miles with 70 pound packs. They taught us how to use improvised weapons, they taught us how to live off the land, and they taught us how to kill things including people with our bare hands. We learned hand to hand combat; we learned Judo, and even some improvised Martial Arts. Our training was intense every single day.

Getting back to Wild Bill….He liked beer, I was not a beer drinker or anything else for that matter, I just didn't like it.

Still don't.

Guess who always drove?  Yep, it was me and that was okay since I knew I'd get back safe. There was a little bar not far from the base we were at in Charleston, South Carolina we called The Pit, short for The Garbage Pit, I'm not sure of the real name. It was a dirty little place that only served beer and sandwiches. Its saving grace was it had a jukebox. 

Now….Get the picture…Charleston, South Carolina is a Navy town. There is also an Air force base there. So there were about eight to ten thousand sailors and about three thousand airmen in Charleston plus approximately 300 Marines.

We were the MP's.

They sailors and the airmen hated us and the odds were thirteen thousand to three hundred.....The odds were about even. There were bars around Charleston that would have signs in their windows that said "NO DOGS OR MARINES ALLOWED" but the sign was often misspelled in some way. The Pit was one of these places so that's where we went.

There were about eight tables and about ten bar stools at the bar plus one pool table. I’ve already said that Wild Bill liked to drink beer and he liked to fight, right?   I never saw Bill drunk, EVER. The boy could drink four pitchers and you could never tell he had a drink.   That’s an important detail to remember, by the way…..

We had been at The Pit about two hours.  When we got there we saw about ten cars in the lot and every single one of them had a Navy sticker on it. Like I said we had been there a while but the whole time we were there we were being watched by three sailors by the jukebox.

Well this is about the time the fun started.

Drinking two pitchers of beer will make you look for a bathroom and fortunately for Bill there was one in the corner.

Bill got up and headed to the bathroom and I was left at the table drinking my Coke and eating my sandwich. When Bill got up to leave there was a little commotion at the table with the sailor. They started poking each other and shoving each other and talking under their breath. Well two of them got up and followed Bill into the bathroom. 

I sat there wondering if I should follow them and finally I said to myself "There's only two of them".

Well about ten seconds later I heard Bill in a rather loud voice say "What The F*** Do You Think I'm Doing You Stupid Deck Ape?!?"

Then I heard a high pitched scream and a man yelling "Let me go!!!, He made me come in here!!!!".

What followed by a lot of noise. I walked over to the door very slowly and propped up against the wall holding a bar stool I picked up on the way over. The lone friend came over and told me he was going to see if his friends need help. I said, “No, you’re not, you need to go sit down until my friend is through.”  The guy responded with "What are you going to do to stop me"? I said "Do you want me to tell you or show you?” He said "No.", and he sat down. 

About that time it got very quite in the bathroom and everyone in the bar was trying not to pay any attention to what was going on. The door opened as a bloody hand held it open and Bill said "I need your help." 

As I walked in there was one guy unconscious under the sinks and the other guy was half way in a stall. I opened the stall door and it was a mess. Bill had pulled the towel machine off the wall and beat this man with it. This was one of the old kind that had the cloth towel all rolled up and you just the same towel for years.  Remember those?

Anyway this guy was flat on his back on a really nasty floor with a red towel draped over his face. Bill said "What are we gonna do?" I said, "We? You killed um."

I guess Bill felt guilty.  He wanted to get their friend…the lone one… to help us get them to the hospital.  Bill walked out the door and was heading over to the table where the guy was sitting. Bill had not seen himself and I guess I should have said something, but he looked like he had just slaughtered a hog with nail clippers. He was bloody from head to toe, his shirt was torn and he was missing a shoe and one sock. The sailor saw Bill come out and heading to his table. He jumped straight up and ran in place in midair from Bill like you have seen in a cartoon. He bolted out the door and ran down the street.  He might still be running today.

Well, we drug the two guys out and put them in the back of Bills truck and took them to the Naval Hospital and left them in the parking lot.

I'm sure hoping somebody found those old boys.

Now getting back to Kung Fu. Every year in the fall there is a big fair that comes to Charleston, and it's a really big deal. Like I said this year Kung Fu was a big part of the fair. There were a lot of places all over town teaching Kung Fu and there were also no shortage of exhibitions at the fair itself. Bill and I had gone to the fair and as we were walking out we passed one of these exhibitions. There were people jumping and screaming and kicking and punching and more screaming and we had a good time watching.

We headed out to the parking lot along with about a hundred other people. As we were walking to the truck I walked past Bill and turned around and in my best Bruce Lee voice I yelled Hiiiiii Yaaaa, and jumped up and kicked Bill in the chest, not hard but it looked it. He jumped up and got into his best fighting stance and chopped me in the neck and I went down and did a leg sweep and he went down and I dropped on his chest and he kicked me off and I rolled over and got up and he was behind me and got me in a full Nelson.

We were trained how to break that and get the upper hand and that's what I did as I dropped with a reverse leg sweep then I turned and jumped on Bill’s chest.....But it was not Bill. It was one of Charleston’s Boys in Blue. I had my guy on his back pined and Bill had his face down in the grass. At this point we stopped playing and the cops were really pissed. You see while we were playing a crowd had circled us, there several dozen people watching us.

We let the police up and they were both a little like Barney Fife. They were both shaking trying to get the cuffs on us and one was saying "You’re in a lot of trouble mister, we are police officers and you attacked us.”

I really thought it was Bill behind me and we tried to explain that to the police but they were embarrassed by just having their lunch handed to them in front of all those people. We told them we were best buddies and we were playing and not fighting and they said, "We know fighting when we see it."

I said, “Look there's no blood, I'm not hurt....He's not hurt, we were playing.” About that time Wanda came and saved our butts. Wanda had gone out with Bill a few times and she was still a little sweet on him and she also was one of the cop’s sister in law. After about 30 minutes in cuffs they let us go.

Kinda makes you want to rent a Bruce Lee movie, don't it?