Got kind of bored one summer so I built this big concrete lizard in the front yard.

It is made of chicken wire covered with a thin layer of concrete. The original idea came from a nursery down the road that had a smaller pink elephant made the same way. At one point they had a for-sale sign on it so I stopped and inquired. They wanted $250 plus delivery cost. This one cost maybe as much as $150 (almost $100 of that was for the flat marbles), plus a bit of labor. Around here there is a big rivalry between Florida Gators and Florida Seminoles (the college football teams – the Indians and alligators get along a lot better), so I had to make sure that it very distinctly was NOT a gator, otherwise Seminole fans would have thrown garbage in my yard, tried to burn down my house, or something like that.

If you think I exaggerate, there is the story of the department store Santa Claus a few years back (Seminole fan) who got this little kid wearing a Gators T-shirt on his lap. Probably as a joke, he told the kid, “You know, Santa doesn’t come to houses where Gator fans live …” Of course the kid was terribly upset, his father heard about it, and he and Santa ended up rolling around on the floor right there in the department store duking it out, until the store security people pried them apart. Needless to say, that Santa’s career ended abruptly. Such is the passion of Florida football rivalry …