Hello-Goodbye

You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello

Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello

I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello

Why, why, why, why, why, why?
Do you say good bye Goodbye,
bye, bye, bye, bye
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello hello, hello

I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello
Hello
Hela, heba helloa Hela, heba helloa

Crusty the Gator Survives!

The calls came from as far away as Hawaii: Spare Crusty. The gator, identified in a South Florida Sun-Sentinel story last week, was one of four who hung around rest stops and boat ramps along Alligator Alley in the Everglades. After being fed by humans, they had become overly friendly -- and potentially dangerous. Having lost their fear of humans, the law said they had to be destroyed.

But public attention, and an anonymous donor, has led to a permanent stay of execution. Three of the four condemned reptiles embarked Friday on a snappy new life in a shady gator pit at an animal exhibit in the Seminole Reservation in Hollywood. Crusty is still on the loose."They've got it better here than they did out there," said Todd Hardwick, the alligator trapper who helped arrange for the reptiles' new home. "They'll be cared for, get fed. They've got some female gators there."

Crusty's plight came to life in a story about officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission citing people for feeding the gators at Everglades rest areas. A total of 13 people have been charged this summer with the second-degree misdemeanor. Feeding gators causes them to associate people with food and increases the danger of attack, experts say. This spring, Florida alligators killed three women, including one in Sunrise. Feeding also means a death sentence for the gators. Crusty and three swamp-mates, whom wildlife officers named Speedy, Boomer and Freddy, were to be caught and destroyed.

But soon "Everybody was getting calls," said Hardwick, who fielded a half-dozen himself. "A lot of people felt sorry for the gators." One of Hardwick's callers was a Broward man who wished to remain anonymous. The man offered to pay the costs, $1,150 in this case, of capturing the gators. Trappers are paid from selling the meat and hides of the animals they catch. Trappers can sell condemned gators to a licensed animal facility at their own discretion, said wildlife agency spokesman Jorge Pino. Some wildlife officials received calls for a reprieve for the gators, but that didn't affect the agency's position, he added. "The process worked," Pino said. "An alligator was deemed to be a nuisance and it was removed. "Hardwick spent hours on the phone Thursday, notifying wildlife officials, resolving license issues and arranging for the Seminole Village to accept any captured gators.

That evening, trappers took to Alligator Alley looking for the four sociable critters. Within two hours, using a treble hook to snag and a noose to snare, they pulled two males and one female ashore. One male had lost part of his left foreleg. None appeared to be the 8.5 foot Crusty, named for a discoloration on his back. Next morning, the cold-blooded captives were sloshing in the pit at the Seminole Village under the care of manager Jimmy Riffle. "We're going to use them for educational purposes, to show what happens when you introduce food to alligators and the danger of it," Riffle said. Crusty may soon join them. Trappers will renew the search for Crusty this weekend.

Gator chews Shih Tzu

Largo, Florida: One moment, Shih Tzu dogs Fifi and Cassidy were romping on the shore of a freshwater lake. The next Fifi was gone, dragged into the water in the jaws of an 9-foot alligator, the dog's owner said. "I just can't describe how fast it was,'' Al Clark said. The attack happened Sunday evening about 3 feet from shore, Clark said. He said Cassidy charged the alligator after it snatched 10-pound Fifi, but Clark pulled the dog back and watched helplessly as the gator carried Fifi across the lake in its jaws. "If I'd had a gun I would have shot him,'' Clark told the St. Petersburg Times.

On Tuesday, a trapper caught a 9-foot-9, 260-pound alligator believed to be the culprit. Jeanne Murphy, a park naturalist and wildlife biologist at the Pinellas County Extension, said alligators may confuse small pets with more common prey such as birds, fish and snakes. "I would not recommend walking small dogs or even medium-size dogs along the water's edge,'' Murphy said.

Everglades Claims Young Life

A twenty year old man who lived to airboat, fish, and hunt in the Everglades collapsed and died after trudging through the scorching hot sawgrass to find help when his airboat got stuck. Willie Thornton knew the Everglades as a boy growing up in rural West Palm Beach. He spent every daylight hour he could four-wheeling near its banks, airboating with his father, or just horsing around there with his cousins.

But during a swamp outing on Friday, Thornton's favorite spot to relax became the scene of panic and hours later, his death. According to the Broward Sheriff's Office, Willie Thornton and his uncle, Danny Lee Thornton, launched their airboat about 8:30 a.m. Friday from a ramp at the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach County. The pair were about three miles from the ramp, in Broward County, when their airboat got stuck in the mud about 9 a.m. The boat, which Danny Lee Thornton had recently purchased, broke down. ''I guess Willie thought he'd just go try to find some help, go back to the truck and get a battery and see if they could fix the boat,'' Gaydos said.

Danny Lee Thornton, 38, used his cellphone to call relatives and tell them the boat wasn't working. Meanwhile, Willie Thornton slogged his way through at least 12-foot-high sawgrass searching for the road where the truck was parked. Swamp grasses can make it feel 20 degrees hotter. The temperature Friday in West Palm Beach was 90 degrees. ''The people who live out there get lost on a daily basis,'' said Robert Gaydos of South Carolina, who grew up with Danny Lee Thornton. "The levees are adjusted, forming islands one day that disappear the next.''

About 6:40 p.m. Friday, the Thornton family called the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, touching off an extensive search with helicopters and airboats. A Thornton cousin found Willie Thornton just before 11 a.m. Saturday, a fifth of a mile from the access road out of the Everglades, authorities said. He had wandered about two miles from where the airboat got stuck. Rescuers believe he died of exposure. The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office is expected to make a final determination later this week.

The Thornton family spent Father's Day at a home west of West Palm Beach, talking about the hardworking man who died in a place that, for years, had given him great peace. (excerpted from story by Ashley Frantz and Jennifer Lebovich)