Dear Otus,
Oh, the horror. The horror! The first thing I thought when I read last week about the alligators being stolen from that Hot Springs farm was, "Oh, sweet, holy mother of pearl. Not again?"
I was at Riverfest in 1997 when that monster swarmed up out of the sewers near the La Harpe pedestrian overpass. I could have been one of those in the bloodbath!
I think it's likely the same thing will happen again in a couple of years, once those 'gators grow up.
-- Al Lagarto,
North Little Rock
Dear Al,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and to have the opportunity to put your mind at ease. Or perhaps not, depending on your epistemic ambivalence.
Granted there are a number of similarities between the recent events at the Arkansas Alligator Farm and Petting Zoo and what transpired there in 1994 to bring about the horrendous circumstance that took place at Riverfest in '97.
To inform those ignorant of that infamous incident, it all started out as a prank by the Delta Tau Chi fraternity at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The Deltas, we'll note, were subsequently suspended by their national organization, and the chapter was disbanded by UALR for its behavior.
The Delta house, next to the Kappa Sigmas on Taylor Street, was razed in 1998, the earth was sowed with salt and the site used for a parking deck.
As it was revealed at their trial, six members of Delta staged a commando-style raid on the venerable Hot Springs tourist attraction in 1994 and purloined "Avimelekh," an eight-foot 'gator and tourist favorite. Avi was well-known for sitting up on his hind legs and "begging" for his thrice-weekly treats of live, free-range chickens and lab rats.
The Deltas' plan to put Avi in Cooper Fountain on the last day of classes fell through when a security guard neared. So the boys took Avi and dumped him down a storm drain at Markham and Cumberland streets in downtown Little Rock.
The fetid, rodent-rich labyrinthine maze beneath Little Rock's streets proved to be the perfect environment for Avi to grow to gargantuan proportions. That became evident when he burst from a grate at the 20th Riverfest. It was just east of the Budweiser/KDRE stage at 8:06 p.m. May 25, 1997.
It was during a Bela Fleck & the Flecktones concert, and the bluegrass fusion quartet had just begun its hit "Blu-bop" from the 1996 Live Art album.
The panic among the 2,500 gathered was predictable and widespread.
Avi then crunched Ozzie the Robot in half, swallowing its legs whole. Ozzie, you might recall, was the popular, life-size fiberglass creation of Gordie Davidson, a retired army engineer from Lansing, Kan., who operated the robot at fairs and festivals by remote control.
Used to a diet of rats and the occasional possum, Avi gagged on Ozzie and choked to death. It was a very close thing.
The Osborne Family Fireworks were delayed half an hour while Avi's carcass was hauled off by a frontloader belonging to the Troy Landry family of Stuttgart. The Landrys were on hand to help with the clean-up the following morning.
Van Tilbury, Riverfest executive director, said it could have been a lot worse. "Had that monster come up next to the amphitheatre where folks were preparing for the fireworks, no telling how many casualties there would have been."
The only real damage other than to Ozzie was to Roy "Future Man" Wooten, one of the Flecktones. He broke an ankle and lost his Drumitar in the river.
How "likely" is this scenario to repeat following the May 15 theft of 13 alligators from the farm? Only one was large enough -- just over seven feet -- to be a concern.
That means the epistemic possibility of your statement may be true, for all we know, but the modal logic, extending classical propositional and predicatory logic to include operators expressing modality, would indicate otherwise.
Even if it was another frat boy prank, welded, alligator-proof sewer grates were installed in Riverfront Park when the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center was built in 2008.
Stephens, who personally paid $187,000 for the grate upgrade, was at the 1997 concert celebrating his recent 29th birthday and explained, "It was the most profoundly horrifying moment of my life. Never again."
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that although they may be cute as babies, alligators grow up to be big and dangerous.
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