When Brett Favre was about 8 years old, he and his brother started feeding cookies to three alligators living in a river that surrounded his home on three sides in Kiln, Miss.
The alligators liked the cookies so much that they'd climb out of the river and go to Favre's house to get the cookies when Favre came home from school.
This went on for several weeks until his father, a high school football coach, came home one day to find his sons trying to turn the alligators into pets. His father stopped that by shooting the alligators.
"He was either going to shoot them or us for doing that," Favre said.
Favre and his brother denied they had been feeding the alligators and his skeptical father let it pass.
But that was hardly the last time Favre's reckless nature would get him in trouble.
He pretty much lived his life on the edge, on the NFL field going from the highs of a Super Bowl triumph to the lows of throwing nine interceptions in the last three games.
Favre, 29, who will take on the Ravens' defense Sunday at Lambeau Field, will probably never be a wily old veteran. Once a gunslinger, always a gunslinger.
His coach, Mike Holmgren, said: "I think he'll never lose the fiery, competitive side of him that will occasionally allow him to take chances. In the last few years, that's been a good thing for us. I think in the last three games, we've been too reckless. He knows that."
Not that Holmgren wants him to be too careful.
"He can never lose that part of him that makes him really great," he said.
Said Favre: "If I haven't changed any in eight years, I don't think I'll change any in the near future. The way I play the game, it makes Mike pull his hair out."
He added, "I could play 30 years and never conquer this game. It just ain't that easy."
Favre's life off the field has been as much of a challenge as his life on it.
He almost died when he was 10 months old, when he found some medicine and swallowed 15 Percodans and had to be rushed to the hospital to get his stomach pumped.
"Brett's the kind of kid you would kick out of kindergarten," his first NFL coach, Jerry Glanville, once said.
That prompted Favre's kindergarten teacher to write the local paper to say that he was a model student. Favre said he once went to school 10 years without missing a day.
That's Favre. There's also a serious side to him.
