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"CRABZILLA"
By Vernon Cross
In 1966 at the age of 16, I quit school and ventured from my home in Maryland
on a Greyhound bus to central Florida were I got a job at a well know fishing
resort on the banks of Lake Crescent, one of the several large lakes in the
World famous St. Johns River area.... "The Bass Capital of the
World". My older brother was the manger of the place and he always took
the parties with the pretty girls out fishing while I was stuck with guys
wearing Hawaiian shirts, straw hats, flip flops and white sun block on their
nose. Mr. Pique was the Constable in the area as well as the owner of
"Pique's Fish Camp", my new home.
My job was boat handler and fishing guide for the paying public, I received
pay "plus tips", cool. Not to mention the other jobs of fish scaler/cleaner,
boat scrubber, the guy who cuts the grass, handles the trash, goes to the
dump, cleans the bait tanks, paints the cottages and puts the outboard motors
away each night ... but I don't remember much about that part. It was just
great being there, Florida was like another world to me ,everything either
crawled, slithered, hopped, flopped, glided, gurgled or waddled on all fours
and that was fine with me. If It ran away, I would catch it... If it came at
me, I would runaway... we had a understanding.
I have lots of stories of my year and a half in Florida but today I'll just
tell you about "CRABZILLA". On my off hours I would pursue the
venture of "critter catching" to include but not limited to; snakes,
lizards, armadillos, rabbits, bats, alligators, snapping turtles, bull frogs,
coons, scorpions. BIG bugs, etc.... but I don't do spiders.
Around the underwater pilings of the rather extensive docks and piers of the
place, were lots of fresh water blue crabs clinging to the supports. I would
pole one of the smaller boats around and using a dip net, catch blue crabs for
an occasional crab feast. There was an old heavy steel Sears ice cooler,
probably made in the 1940's called the "Frost King" or something
like that. It was almost big enough to fit a Volkswagen in and this is what I
would put the captured crabs in. As I came around the corner of the pier, I
saw the mother of all crabs clinging to the side of a support with her back to
me. This thing was HUGE... like a genetically altered crab from the
radioactive fallout of nuclear bomb testing from the 50's... CRABZILLA! A
stealthy approach and quick grab netting me enough crab to warrant the calling
out of the entire Japanese army. I Dumped her in with the other crabs and had
to close the lid because she was big enough to climb out and she was not a
happy camper.... talk about crabby!
Back up on the dock, I dumped the container of crabs into a large deep sink
used for cleaning fish. I don't know if you have ever watched a mess of crabs
thrown together in a confined pace but they are not socially polite or even
politically correct to one another. CRABZILLA was the worst offender of all,
she had a crushed crab in each of her raised, large powerful claws, with a
dozen other crabs latched on to her in fear of their life. She was blowing
bubbles and snapping off legs like an old pro. She started picking up crabs an
tossing them over her back then ran up the side of the sink and onto the metal
cleaning table, dragging a half dozen crabs with her. Her eight armored legs
clanked on the metal table like eight trapped prisoners beating in the door of
a burning tin shed.... CRABZILLA was loose, and with only me there between her
and the rest of humanity
There was a large pair of pliers on the table use for pulling the skin off
filleted catfish, I was dumb enough to pick them up and challenged CRABZILLA
to a duel for world domination..."Hey bubble breath, you want a piece of
me"!? I had now become the bionic "CLAWDAN"! We started
snapping at each other, it was a flurry of claws and pliers. CRABZILLA was
raised high on her multi jointed legs, her huge blue/white claws were spread
wide and open in a very menacing manner, bubbles rolled from her mouth in a
foam of venomous hate. The other crabs had scattered, it was just me and her
now. She moved sideways, left then right knocking over cans, bowls and scaling
boards. Her claws snapped as they tried to latch on to me and my pliers
clicked as I countered and snapped at her, it was tooth claw and nail. Oh, I
was fast all right... but not fast enough. With lighting speed , CRABZILLA
latched onto my finger with her massive claw and slowly started squeezing
tighter & tighter. I froze, not wanting to try and sling her off; I knew
she had me and I did not want her to latch on with other claws as well...
Noooo.
The pressure was unbelievable. I felt my skin break, felt the claw slicing
through the meat and finally settled on bone. I held very still, holding
CRABZILLA dangling about two feet off the dock, hanging onto my finger. Her
other foreboding claw was opened and cocked and ready to fire, I did not want
to antagonize her any further... for the moment at least. My blood ran down
her claw, under her belly and dripped off her hind leg onto the dock in a
growing puddle. She did not move other than continually blowing bubbles, her
small black beady eyes stared into mine, I think she realized it was a stand
off ~hem. I know I turned white and felt a little nauseous, the pain was bad
but the situation was even worse, with that other claw ready to spring like a
fresh bear trap. If that happened, she would be able to cover me in foamy
bubbles causing my eyes to explode and my would skin would fall off as I
screamed in agony. After about a minute ( the longest minute of my life) I
felt her grip start to ease up, slowly CRABZILLA (surly thinking I was dead by
now) released her grip on my throbbing bleeding finger and dropped to the
bleached bloody boards of the weathered dock... BIG mistake.
No sooner had CRABZILLA hit the boardwalk, when a Sears, 1940's vintage,
Freezer King ice cooler weighing about 29 pounds, came hurdling down from
outer space and slammed smack on top of the old CRABZILLA...several times...
imagine that. No need to call out the Japanese army, a little 409 and a
scraper will do nicely.
I think of old CRABZILLA now and again, usually when I pick up a pair of
pliers. That was one of two times that I know I went into shock (mild). The
other time was when I broke my leg the second time, the pain was so great I
passed out.
So I'm telling you, if you ever get the urge to pick up a pair of pliers and
take on a really ticked off giant crab...don't... the claw is quicker than the
eye.
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The above story was written by a highly trained professional, possessing
skills honed by years of intensive and dangerous practice. Please do not
attempt anything you may have seen or read here. Always use sound judgment,
common since and discretion after reading such material.
Vernon Cross is a
painter of nature and it's situations.
He is a longtime prospector and expert detectorist.
His work can be seen here: Vern Cross...Alaska Mining Artist
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