by: Ed Williams
Are we still living in Georgia, or has our state somehow changed into Brazil or Mexico?
I mean it, I’m genuinely starting to wonder, and I‘ll tell y‘all why. Just this past weekend I made a trip over to Jekyll Island because I had a little business to attend to there. Thusly, I slipped away from work Thursday afternoon and started the drive down. I was feeling loose and relaxed, George Thorogood and the Destroyers were singing “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” on the radio, and I was eating cashews and washin’ em down with a Diet Mountain Dew - my two favorite road trip food items. Life was goin’ pretty good until I got just outside of McCrae, and that’s when I saw it......
“It” was an armadillo. A real armadillo, the only thing of note was that it was a very dead armadillo, an armadillo who appeared to have lost a bout with a car. Needless to say, my appetite for cashews went south as I gazed upon this very mashed armadillo. Frankly, it took me a good three or four miles until I could even start to sip on my Diet Mountain Dew again. Amazingly, though, this initial mashed armadillo was only one of three dead ones that I saw on the way down to Jekyll! It puzzles me, I didn’t even think armadillos came from around here, I always thought they lived over in Texas or Mexico and were certainly not a member of Georgia‘s animal population. I’m not even sure what species an armadillo is, is it part lizard, part anteater, or is it kin to the turtle family? Whatever it is, it’s not something you typically see out on a Georgia highway. Three extremely dead armadillos viewed on one trip to the Golden Isles is a first for me, and I’m a genetic, lifelong resident of Georgia.
I arrived in Jekyll late Friday evening, and on Saturday morning I found myself playing a little golf tournament. Well, actually I participated in it more than I played as it’s been years since I‘ve swung a golf club. Fortunately, I was playing in a scramble, and after buying lots of beer for our team I found that my golfing skills were accepted and well respected within our foursome.
We’d played five or six holes, and then walked up to one that had a little creek running through the middle of the fairway. I teed off first, and actually hit a drive straight down the middle, landing only about fifteen feet or so behind said creek. After the other three members of my team hit, we got in our carts and stopped about twenty yards or so behind the creek. I jumped out, and noticed that there was a big log right in front of my ball, and as I walked up to it I was trying to figure out how I was going to clear it with my next shot. Imagine my surprise when the log suddenly moved and hissed!
Turned out it wasn’t a log, but an alligator! Let me tell you, I downloaded every personal bodily fluid that I possessed and then shagged heiny very quickly away from Mr. Gator! It was huge, and didn’t seem to be happy at all that I had approached it. Needless to say, the members of my foursome very much enjoyed watching me impersonate an Olympic class sprinter, cheering every gasping step of my mad dash away from harm. After it was over, I decided to stay inside the cart for the rest of the round for reasons that I can’t go into here, and don‘t even email me to find out cause I ain‘t tellin.’
Alligators and armadillos in Georgia? What in the devil is going on? Well, maybe those gators are tired of being around all those retired old yankees down in Florida and are wanting to live around regular Southerners like us. Or maybe these armadillos know that job opportunities are much better here than in Mexico, if you get my drift. Bottom line, I haven’t a clue as to why all this is going on, but animal wise my beloved state of Georgia is changing in a marked way. It almost makes you wonder what’s gonna be next, Perry Como singing “Georgia On My Mind” at the Stone Mountain Laser Show?