Alligator Crossing the Nanafalia Bridge and Other Oddities

Weird things are happening in the animal kingdom now a days.  The other day when it was raining so hard, I wondered if I had missed the animals marching toward Noah’s Ark.  I know I have not seen them marching, but I did see and hear of some abnormal zoological events.

One day in route to the office from a delicious meal at the Faunsdale Café, I noticed a group, flock, or whatever you call a bunch of buzzards, sitting on the handrails of the Dayton water tower.  I thought to myself, by the way I do that a lot, why are the buzzards there?  It was too early for them to be on the roost.  There were no dead armadillos on the catwalk, so undoubtedly the water was dead.  It was kind of eerie driving beneath a group of buzzards overlooking deserted County Road 44.

While coming back from Selma on AL State Highway 66, I noticed a big bird sitting on a dead pine stump.  The pine stump was about thirty feet high.  I took a double take and realized that it was a bald eagle.  I turned the car around and went back toward Stafford to check my eyesight.  Sure enough, it was a bald eagle sitting so magnificently about the clear cut.  I slowed the car and gazed upon this symbol of American freedom.  It was not an oddity, but it was a rare sight.

Over around Uniontown, there was a mockingbird chasing a crow which was chasing a hawk.  I have seen many different birds chasing crows, but that was the first time I saw the chased being chased.  The hawk seemed unfazed by the attack of the crow, but the crow was flying like there was no tomorrow as the mockingbird darted flogging the crow.  My first thought was all three must have been Baptists because they were sure not getting along.

In that same general area on a different day, I saw three harks sitting together on the telephone line.  Two appeared to be full grown, and the third much smaller.  I thought it very odd.  I could not determine if they were resting, in dialogue, or too lazy to catch small varmints.  It could have been that it was hawk parents laying down the law about junior’s first road trip to “Catfish Gut Goulash,” “Smelly Cheese Custard,” or if they were lecturing him on flying without a respirator over the “Coal Ash Dump.”

Sitting outdoors for a devotional, I kept hearing this odd sound.  It sounded like a woodpecker tapping on a tin can.  When I finally found it, it was a redheaded woodpecker pecking the electrical transformer.  I thought that he must have a carbide beak or he was addicted to the PCB’s in the transformer and was tapping for a refill.

Speaking of transformers, one morning the office was dark.  Pam and Steve thought the electricity was off which is kind-of-the-norm for Linden.  After a quick survey, we realized that the office was the only building without “juice.” Juice is a Chiltonian term for electricity.  I walked around back to see if a limb was on the line, another common problem in Linden.  I could smell burning hair.  Yep, you guessed it, Rocky the Fried Squirrel was working without an electrical permit.

It is unusual to see fried squirrels in the drive but not unusual to see wildlife carnage on the highways.  I do not know what the problem was, but for some reason, an alligator decided to cross the Nanafalia Bridge from Choctaw County over to Marengo rather than swim the Tombigbee River.  I wish I could have seen the cars trying to dodge the gator.  I bet there was some rubbernecking that day.  Word was that he almost made the trip.  I was told that a log truck got the gator tale; I mean the gator’s tail.  When asked why the gator was crossing the bridge I replied, “To get to the other side and show the armadillos it could be done.”

The other morning Luke 17 was the Scripture for my morning devotion.  When I read it, I thought about the buzzards on the Dayton water tower and all the other weird things I have witnessed in the past few months.

It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.  On that day, no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.  Remember Lot's wife!  Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.  I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.  Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.  Where, Lord?  they asked.   He replied, Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather (Luke 17:30-37 NIV).