Alligator

Blues man Eric Lindell remembers quitting his job and taking up a full-time career in music. Back in 1994, he was living in Sonoma County, Calif., working at a bakery and gigging by night. It was a scary switch, he said. "It really is some deep water out there," said Lindell, 38. "It's a fine line to walk, too ... to get out there and hustle some original music." For years, Lindell scraped out a living on the road, playing as much as possible and recording and releasing albums independently.

''Best book, 'Max and the Baby-sitter' by Danielle Steel and Jacqueline Rogers. Max and his baby-sitter were making cookies. If you like funny books, read this one to find out what funny things happen when they make the cookies.''- Rashdia BrownLeith Walk Elementary``I liked reading 'Cinderella' by Charles Perrault. First, I liked the action. I liked when Cinderella was running down the steps and lost her shoe. Second, I liked the ending. I liked when the prince married the girl.''- Kasia BrandesWellwood International School``I like 'Zack's Alligator' by Shirley Mozelle because it is a book where Zack gets something in the mail.

"In 'Zack's Alligator' by Shirley Mozelle, a boy named Zack got a box from his father. Inside the box was an alligator key. When Zack put water on the alligator, it became real. Read and find out if this alligator will be mean or friendly."-- Danez Jones, Leith Walk Elementary"I liked the book 'The Kissing Hand' by Audrey Penn. It is about loving and caring. Chester the raccoon learns that his mom's love is always with him."-- Julia Benjamin, Thunder Hill ElementaryThe Sun invites its young readers to send in their book reviews, and we will print them on this page or on sunspot.

NEW ORLEANS -- Mark Chmura has a million stories on Brett Favre, and they're all funny.All except the one where Favre's chocolate Labrador gets eaten by an alligator in the backwater town of Kiln, Miss. One of five Favre dogs, Chmura said, that met that grisly fate.Chmura, a tight end, Favre, the two-time MVP quarterback, and center Frank Winters are best pals. They have been best pals since all three arrived in Green Bay in 1992.It was sometime in the early years that Favre enticed his two buddies down to Kiln for a social call.

We had just walked through the turnstile, putting us inside Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp Park, when Younger Daughter gestured toward one of the rangers and whispered, "He's missing two fingers on his hand.""That's a good sign," I said.My daughter frowned and kicked me in the knee.Now before you, too, think me callous, let me explain. I was a man on a mission. My mission was to see an alligator. In the wild.Since you almost never hear of alligator sightings along, say, the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania, it was clear we were going to have to head south.

This could turn out to be one of those classic man-woman things: Do you watch a love story between Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston on ABC, or the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models on TNT?"

In 1953 I bought an alligator bag and matching shoes in New Orleans. Although they are beautiful and unusual, I no longer wear them. I hear that alligator accessories such as these are sold in antique clothing stores for quite a lot of money. Is this true?Yes, alligator bags and shoes are sold in many antique markets. To get the scoop for you I asked Terin Fischer of Out of Our Closet, a New York City store that sells used designer clothing.She says that while alligator pieces are popular, not every item commands a high price.

Long before Karl Lagerfeld stamped the double C logo on every Chanel bag, belt and button and the Vuitton fleur de lis became a knockoff cliche, a woman of discriminating style was known by the quality of her shoes and handbag. That meant perfectly crafted pumps and a structured purse of the finest leather. Those who could pay the price wore alligator -- the status turnout, a discreet message of belonging to the fashion sorority. The '30s, '40s and '50s were the dressy decades.Fashion evolved and we had the decades when plastic go-go boots, combat boots, sneakers and schlep totes became acceptable wear for a day in town.

Sunnyland Slim, 87, a legendary blues pianist who helped power the raucous Chicago sound, died Friday in Chicago, Alligator Records announced.Slim, also a singer and composer, was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988 and was lauded as one of America's great traditional artists.Born Albert Luandrew in Vance, Miss., he began his career playing piano and organ in church, and went on to record more than 20 albums over seven decades. He got his first job playing in a movie theater in 1924 and later moved north, eventually signing with Chess Records in Chicago.

25 Years Ago* John D. Fitzpatrick of Manchester went fishing at PrettyboReservoir with a bow and arrow. Fitzpatrick, an outdoorsman and painter who likes to raise muskrats, came back with a 17-inch alligator after the reptile missed in a swipe at his heel. Fitzpatrick and his companion, "Dink" Hann, stowed the reptile in his car trunk and headed home. Fitzpatrick lives on a four-acre farm between Hampstead and Manchester, and he wanted to get the animal out and play with it. If the alligator lives, he'll move him to a pond with a special fence around it. Right now, the gator is enjoying himself in Fitzpatrick's bathtub.

OK, so you walk into your office this morning and there's a black cat perched on your keyboard. Mildly alarming, right? But there's also a neon-pink alligator sitting in your chair, and he's salivating. Which is of greater concern? When you look at the Orioles' problems this offseason, shortstop is the black cat. Last year's options brought plenty of poor fortune, and the team probably won't be a winner unless they're removed. But it shouldn't be all that hard to push them aside and find a competent professional.

An Anne Arundel County Animal Control officer pulled a 2-foot-long alligator out of a golf course pond, authorities said yesterday. A golfer first spotted the reptile May 30 in a pond at the Arundel Golf Park in Glen Burnie. The sighting prompted a hunting expedition of sorts for an animal control officer, who put down traps for several days but came up with nothing. It wasn't until another animal control officer, Glenn Johnson, went searching Wednesday with a rod and reel that the alligator was captured.

Though the interstate highway system has been the death of many roadside attractions, you can still experience the magic of alligator wrestling at many locations in South Florida. Native Village, a well-known gator wrestling site on the Seminole Indian Reservation, is just minutes from the Orioles' Fort Lauderdale training camp. If you're bored with Disney World, there's also a popular spot in the Orlando area called Gatorland, where you can have your picture taken astride a live alligator.

Blues man Eric Lindell remembers quitting his job and taking up a full-time career in music. Back in 1994, he was living in Sonoma County, Calif., working at a bakery and gigging by night. It was a scary switch, he said. "It really is some deep water out there," said Lindell, 38. "It's a fine line to walk, too ... to get out there and hustle some original music." For years, Lindell scraped out a living on the road, playing as much as possible and recording and releasing albums independently.

?The unique thing about it is, it provides real-time, 3-D, actionable intelligence.? Don Ryan, Proxy Aviation Systems CEO, on a new drone aircraft tested by the Germantown company Article, PG 1d Up Next Tomorrow Southern Sounds Southern and proud, Florida-born JJ Grey talks about his Alligator Records debut, Country Ghetto. His sound, mixing country, funk and blues, can be heard Feb. 28 at the Recher Theatre. in Live! Friday Abolition Amazing Grace, Michael Apted's drama about the drive to end slavery in the British Empire, opens.

Minutes after the Ravens' 27-26 comeback victory over the Tennessee Titans on Nov. 12, linebacker Adalius Thomas - who made eight tackles and a sack despite a jammed finger - took a welcome hot shower, dried himself off and prepared to get dressed. But rather than wrap his weary, 6-foot-2, 270-pound frame in, say, a long-sleeved polo shirt and sweat pants, Thomas meticulously dressed in a sharp-looking gray suit with a blue shirt, blue-and-gray tie and blue alligator shoes. Ravens@Chiefs Sunday, 1 p.m., Ch. 13, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Chiefs by 3

LOS ANGELES -- Forget the car chases. Forget the shootouts. Forget the lions and bears running amok in the urban landscape. Los Angeles has a new marquee attraction: Reggie the alligator, a 7-foot-long public menace that was illegally set loose in a 53-acre city lake last fall. It was Day 308 as of yesterday in the hunt for Reggie, and the city has just about had enough with the elusive gator. Any day now, Reggie is expected to emerge from hibernation, and the Los Angeles City Council will then welcome its fourth gator wrangler in the quest to remove the reptilian scourge and put it in the zoo where a better home awaits.

More intimidating than a green-eyed gator, speedier than a flapping goose, he's Zip, a streak of gray, white and black collie who hounds waterfowl at a popular Carroll County park. Sporting a short coat that dubs him a "working dog," Zip races around Westminster Community Pond, hustling honking geese into the water. The birds hiss but don't venture ashore to tangle with the wiry border collie, who so frustrates the geese that many have flown off to another watering hole. Dan Laxton, a former MCI employee, trained his 55-pound male collie to herd fowl but not hurt them.

WASHINGTON - Undersea explorers will plunge into the waters off Cape Hatteras and into the depths of long-forgotten history tomorrow in hopes of finding the 141-year-old wreckage of the U.S. Navy's first submarine. Named the Alligator because of its green color and the leglike oars that initially propelled it, the vessel was launched in 1862. It failed in its missions against Confederate targets in Virginia's Hampton Roads area and sank off North Carolina's Outer Banks while under tow in a fierce storm in 1863.

The lizardlike creature rose again yesterday from the muddy waters of Seneca Creek in eastern Baltimore County. No one is quite sure what it is - perhaps an alligator or, more likely, its cousin, a caiman. And no one has been able to catch the animal, which is said to be about 2 to 3 feet long and has been, according to residents, living under a gazebo and playing in the creek's waters for about two weeks. When the reptile reared its head yesterday afternoon - maybe to bask in the summer sun or to torment one of the small dogs playing near the creek's shoreline - somebody called 911. Soon, Baltimore County police and Maryland Natural Resources Police swarmed the Bowleys Quarters neighborhood.