Fried Gator And Jury Duty

Have you ever eaten alligator? I have heard people say that the idea of eating a reptile is enough to make them gag, but the way I look at it, if gators eat people, turnabout is fair play.

I have eaten it many times and it’s usually been pretty good, although at a couple of places it has had a consistency of an eraser. But if it is prepared and cooked right, it can be delicious. There are a few restaurants around here that serve it, including Goodrich Seafood, which is a local favorite. It’s my go-to dish when we dine there. But since we haven’t gone out to eat for months now, I really wanted some.

On our last grocery shopping excursion, we stopped at Gary’s Meats in Edgewater, a small family-owned meat market where we get most of our meat. The quality is always better than you’re going to get in a supermarket, and the price isn’t that much different. Besides which, we love supporting small local businesses whenever we can. Terry had never cooked alligator before, but she found a couple of recipes on the Internet and decided to give it a try for dinner last night. It was absolutely delicious, tender, and cooked with just the perfect amount of seasoning. I can say with no hesitancy that it was the best alligator I’ve ever had. I told Terry we definitely need to do that again.

I mentioned a while back that I was called for jury duty in early August and was not looking forward to driving all the way to DeLand to sit in a room full of people waiting to get selected from the pool of potential jurors. Especially not with COVID-19 racking up higher numbers on an almost daily basis here in Florida, and masks not required or allowed during the selection process for security reasons.

After seeing that blog post, my chiropractor, who has been treating me for over three years now, wrote a letter to the court asking that I be permanently excused from jury duty due to my back issues. Sitting for prolonged periods of time can be very painful for me. When I am working here at home I can get up and move around when I need to, but you can’t do that during a court trial. That was followed up by a second letter, this one from the surgeon who did my nerve ablations, which included copies of my MRIs and the same request that I be permanently excused. I’m not sure the judge will accept them, although I don’t know why he wouldn’t.

But it may be a moot point anyway since just yesterday I received word that all jury trials here in Volusia County are on hold for the foreseeable future. That’s just fine with me.

My friend “Cool” Judy Rinehimer is my second proofreader, and she spent the last couple of days working her way through Tinder Street, the first book my new family history saga. She finished it last night, and added this note with her final edits: I think your readers are going to LOVE this series. Your storyline carries so much strength, emotion, and historical facts. It is obvious your research was so thorough. Congratulations on this and future books in the series.

That makes me feel really good. I’ll have it to the last proofreader today, and by the time she gets it, there won’t be that many corrections. Then it will be on to formatting. Unless something totally unexpected turns up, the e-book version should be out pretty soon. Meanwhile, I am already over 10,000 words into the second book in the series.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of undone, the first book in my buddy Jason Deas’ Burt Bigsley mystery series. To enter, all you have to do is click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening.

Thought For The Day – Remember, don’t insult the alligator until after you cross the river.