HOLY HOGS BATMAN!!!

PLASTICVILLE-USA

HOLY HOGS BATMAN!!!

I have come to the conclusion that God has a very unique sense of humor when it comes to the two places that most Americans think are the prime places to live in the continental USA. Those two places are Florida in general and southern California.

When it comes to California, especially southern California on the coastal side, it’s pretty hard to beat the weather. In fact, the television weather people probably have the easiest job on the planet. They get paid to pretty much say the same things over and over again. As in..Hi today 75..low tonight 50. As it says on the shampoo bottle..wash, lather, rinse, repeat. If you discount my love for all 4 seasons, I (and many others) would say that the city of Huntington Beach, California is just about the perfect place to spend your days.

But then come’s God’s interesting sense of humor. Sure..southern California is a BEAUTIFUL place. But there are certain things that come with living there. Little annoying things like massive forest fires that gobble up homes and whole communities at a time. Serious earthquakes, and lots of little ground-shakers to remind you just where you’re hanging your hat. Mud slides that send houses in the Hollywood hills crashing down the mountains and sometimes onto the Pacific Coast Highway. Not to mention that the California state government is tax crazy, and that southern California is the spiritual ground-zero Mecca for virtually every single far-left whackadoodle screw-loose wing-nut organization and idea in the country. Tends to make you look at things with a slightly different eye.

Next on the list is Florida. In reality Florida stands as a monument to every slick fast-talking leisure suit-wearing salesman everywhere. Who else would have been able to sell a place that is essentially one big swamp as earth’s answer to the Garden Of Eden?

Unless you are absolutely right on the coastal beaches, you are living in a sandy, humid, bug-infested swamp. You live in a place where sinkholes magically open up and swallow homes or cars or sometimes whole streets. Now to be fair, people who live in states such as Pennsylvania or West Virginia can suffer the same effects but not for the same reason.

In Pennsylvania or West Virginia, sinkholes open up because so much of their ground has been undermined following almost 200 years of coal extraction. Some old mineshaft or column caves in and…whoops! There goes Aunt Tilly’s house! But there is a REASON for those sinkholes. In Florida, there’s no mining, it’s just that the limestone soil has suddenly moved because too much water has been extracted from the ground and now you can easily enter your home from second story which is now at street-level.

The only real resemblance to God’s Garden Of Eden are the snakes. We are reminded in the book of Genesis about the serpent in the garden. At least according to The Bible, there was only ONE serpent in the garden. In Florida there are millions of the nasty slithering beasts that get into your homes, and surprise the hell out of you when you least expect it. They bite, they’re poisonous..in many cases they are HUGE and are capable of swallowing small things whole..including little old grandmothers.

And then of course there are the bugs. Trillions of them. In fact it seems that God in his humor placed everything that slithers, buzzes, bites, crawls, infects and is generally creepy right here in Florida.

We cannot forget the alligators. Someone here told me that anywhere you have water, you have at least one gator. So they can be found in small ponds, or golf course water traps all the way up to lakes, streams and rivers. All the more reason to have your own swimming pool and not jump into that nice inviting lake you’re looking at!

One of the most interesting creatures that you find in Florida are the feral hogs. According to experts at the University of Florida’s School of Agriculture Florida plays host to over half a million of these destructive and aggressive beasts. In fact the only state with more of them, is the state of Texas.

The origin of the hogs dates back to the 1500’s when Spanish explorers like DeSoto came and set up outposts. Some of the pigs managed to escape, and because hogs are able to breed like rabbits, they became fruitful and multiplied! They are all over the state of Florida.

They are a major problem for Florida farmers because whole herds of these animals will root up crops. The hogs also carry diseases which can infect both livestock and humans.

These are not your garden variety cute little pink pigs. They have tusks and can be very aggressive. They can run quickly and will charge humans if they have a mind to. They are a serious problem in Florida, and there is an aggressive hunting program to cut down their numbers although Bill Giuliano who’s a professor at U-Florida’s Ag School says the state’s aggressive programs can only cut down on the number of hogs, not truly eradicate them. Again the reason that they can’t be totally eradicated is due to the fact that they are prolific breeders and don’t have many natural enemies in the wild.

The hogs..to borrow a phrase…seem to have come home to roost. Right here in America’s Friendliest Hometown..TV! As TV has grown and grown it has gobbled up more and more land that was nothing but grazing and growing land. Animals like the feral hogs and the alligators that lived in the swamps and little streams that made their way thru what is now TV have been finding themselves displaced by adult Disneyland. They have..in their way begun to fight back and make their presence known. A few months ago an alligator was sighted walking down one of TV streets. A little later another one popped up out of a water trap on one of the golf courses and gave some Villager golfers a chance to check and see if their pacemakers were running correctly. In both instances the wildlife wardens were dispatched to deal with the gators.

Now last week a few golfers got the chance to dance with a group of feral hogs. Apparently the hogs decided that that particular golf course was THEIRS and that the golfers could leave, and leave NOW! NO..they didn’t care one wit that these were VILLAGERS and that this was a Villages Golf Course and they’d paid their amenity fees and they were entitled to a round of golf. No! The pigs were taking over, and there was going to be no question about it. Nobody got hurt, and again wildlife troopers were called in to handle the situation by shooting the hogs.

The Borg Collective that is TV does not deal well with imperfection. Computer-driven sameness is what TV is all about. It’s perfectly OK to do your own thing, just as long as you are doing it with everyone else the same way. Hogs in the Borg Collective send off the alarm that…”this does not compute! Danger! Danger Will Robinson!!”

Feral hogs and alligators very much do their own thing, and they don’t care for a minute that they don’t fit into the Villagers’ mode of thinking and operation. So a great hue and cry has now gone up about what to do about the intruders? People are asking..”aren’t those animals forbidden in our deed restrictions??” There is panic in paradise. What to do?

Apparently it is time for TV powers that be to light up the bat signal and summon the caped crusader and Robin for help. Besides..what else is a town that’s become a living cartoon supposed to do??