Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles Read Online Free PDF Page A

the front, their knees against the dash. They set out on
    ir
    the hour-long drive home—no doubt to the sound of claws frantically
    olF
    scratching to escape.
    eg
    Back at the tent, the crowd has thinned, but plenty of snakes re-
    nir
    main. Wildlife workers are encouraging shoppers to pick out two and
    F
    three at a time. A couple of men in home-eviction service T-shirts study
    81
    Aretha the Retic and Miss Hiss, snakes large enough to clear a house of
    any squatters. Anthony, the boss, already owns about twenty snakes.
    Since Floridians can no longer buy many of the constrictors as pets,
    Amnesty Days are about the only legal way they can get one. Antho-
    ny’s been working the Amnesty Day circuit, adopting snakes, birds, and
    chinchillas. Like Ron and Lynn Gard, he turned in two snakes. “I’ve
    handled snakes most all my life, but those African rock pythons were
    just too mean,” he says.
    Undaunted by Miss Hiss’s rap sheet, Anthony dons leather gloves
    and begins uncoiling her from her pet carrier. True to her name, she
    hisses, flicking her long ribbon of a tongue. His home-eviction em-
    ployee and a Busch Gardens worker move closer to help. The snake
    seems endless. By the time she’s fully out of her cage, Anthony has
    threaded her behind his neck, and it takes both him and his employee
    to carry her over for a microchip injection.
    Wearing the snake behind his neck and across his body like a sash,
    Anthony hurries her to his pickup, while his employee follows along
    carrying the snake’s tail end. They store her in a built-in snake box and
    then secure the rest of Anthony’s cache from the day: three other py-
    thons, a couple of boa constrictors, and a yellow-naped Amazon parrot,
    which usually sell for more than a thousand dollars at pet stores. All in
    proof
    all, a pretty good catch for the day if you happen to like big snakes and
    talking birds.
    A Polk County father-and-son team adopt Aretha the Retic. Her
    glass terrarium barely fits horizontally in their pickup.
    The Jacksonville herper family ends up with two bearded dragons, a
    California corn snake, and a tarantula. The boys seem pleased, the old-
    est petting the overgrown lizard as it cleaves to his shirt. The dad walks
    around grinning with the other lizard on his chest.
    Gator Ron is tickled to have the baby gators. The monitor? He’s go-
    sno
    ing to Gatorland in Orlando. All but one sickly python goes home with
    oz-
    someone. Fish & Wildlife celebrate the day as a huge success.
    alF Fo
    Want a Gator with That Fill-Up?
    eire
    Given that two-thirds of Floridians weren’t born in the state, many
    gan
    Fla-zoons are also alien to Florida. They were brave enough to leave
    eM
    their native environment and settle on the fringe of America, a land of
    91
    hurricanes, sinkholes, and people different from themselves. They are
    risk takers by nature. And the native Floridians? They descended from
    people who were perhaps even more so. Pioneering the swampy state
    before air-conditioning and mosquito control took a strong constitu-
    tion. Trying to tame a wild animal that can take your head off in a sin-
    gle bite or strangle you in the middle of the night is a risky proposition.
    No doubt, the state’s tourism industry also influences the Fla-zoon
    mind-set. Ever since tourists have had cars, exotic animals have helped
    lure them to Florida. Early tourism pioneers used creatures from afar
    to create an illusion that Florida was a magical, exotic wonderland full
    of colorful, wild, yet friendly animals. With the right touch, they could
    even be tamed.
    In the early 1920s, Carl Fisher, the father of Miami Beach, brought
    in elephants to help sell his newly developed coastline as the Riviera of
    America. His favorite, Rosie, was photographed giving children rides
    to an Easter egg hunt, dancing with a flapper, and even caddying for
    President Warren Harding. The images made newspapers around the
    country.
    By the 1930s, the common man was able to walk