Messin' with Texas

As many of you may know, this past Saturday I went to a gator wrestling competition. I went with the intention of spectating – what could be better than watching a bunch of rednecks get eaten up by  alligators. They were giving out free T-shirts, which is apparently a big deal around here. Devin and Elizabeth wanted to be sure to beat all the other rednecks to the event and be guaranteed a free T-shirt. Only the first hundred people were going to get them, and Elizabeth assured me a free T-shirt was going to draw a lot of people out of the woodwork.

Well we got there early, and nobody else did. We were the only ones there so we sat in the parking lot until the place opened — we were very early. We did get to see the staff catching gators out of the ponds, which looked incredibly dangerous.

Catching alligators at gator country, beaumont, texas

Gator Country, Beaumont, Texas

Of course, where there are gators, there are inevitably snakes. Devin’s boyfriend and up buying a stake from this snake dealer:

Snake dealer in beaumont, texas

here is a picture of me sitting on the gator that had its mouth taped. The goal of the competition was to wrestle un-taped gators, and tape them yourself before dragging them into a specified area. There were three areas you had to catch a gator in. The first was a swimming pool. The second was a Mud pit. The third was a culvert that you had to drag the alligator out of.

Me and my future wrestling partner

Here are some pictures of a husband and wife team competing. The first day was a team competition, and the second day which I did not attend was singles.

Husband and wife gator wrestling at Gator Country

The mud pit. Next the culvert:

Going into a Culvert after a gator

The competition was being filmed for a TV show called gator911 which will be airing this spring. After watching several people go, and being encouraged by Devin’s boyfriend, I decided I was going to do this. I watched several people get nicked, but nothing serious. It did not look that hard.

So I started calling around to find a partner. Before anybody says anything along the lines of this being easy,  every single one of my friends was too chicken shit to come out and join me. In a last ditch effort I called one of the Sigma Nu brothers from the local chapter; Austin. I got an enthusiastic response from Austin. Like me he had never done it before, but was ready to go.

As expected, the novelty of me being from New York was big. They announced it over the loudspeaker that a guy from New York who have never seen an alligator was up next. People were dropping babies rushing to watch the Yankee get chewed up. The staff was understandably concerned for my well-being. Here are two videos i made from the footage and Elizabeth show. I had to choose between video footage and pictures since we only had one camera, so I went with video. They are the same videos only one of them has music. Enjoy!

The hardest part was getting the alligator off the bottom of the pool. Although it was the smaller of the two alligators used in the pool area, it was the first one, and it took a lot of courage to dive at it. Thankfully I did not get bitten — much to the surprise of several people who approached me afterward — and I had a great time. After you wrestle an alligator for the first time you feel like you can do anything. I still feel like I’m on top of the world. Thanks to: Elizabeth for filming at, Austin for being my only friend with any real courage, Joseph and Rob for coming out to watch, and to Merrick (Devin’s boy friend) for putting the idea in my head. I challenge anyone to have a better Saturday.

After the event, I had to run home, change, clean myself up and get ready to go see the southeast Texas symphony orchestra. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I dressed up nonetheless. If it was banjos, washboards and harmonicas, I would’ve been overdressed. Somewhat unsurprisingly it was actually a proper orchestra, and the music was quite excellent. I’m looking forward to going again in November.