A Lonely Night in Luxara

It was a lonely night in Luxara, Arkansas.  Luxara is a small town on the Mississippi River.  There was the levee--the river side flooded now and then, but the river side was where the gambling was.

I was a Vista volunteer, me in my 20’s on the cotton side.  They had found me a place, $5 a week, and I remember one night crawling under the bed as shots were fired in the adjoining area known as “The Alley.”  At the time I was on the phone with my mother.  She will always remember that conversation somewhere in heaven.

The Alligators of Alligator Alley

My mother was attacked by a rooster near Alligator Alley. I of course remember that – she was in her 60’s, I was in my 40’s and my daughter Ana was a kid.

We were walking “the loop” – a 30-mile excursion into the Everglades off Hwy 41. At the time this two-lane highway was the only way to drive from Miami to Florida’s west coast.

We walked up to a little farmhouse to say hello, when from nowhere a rooster – claws first – attacked. Mom survived another 20 years.

So, Steve (A&C’s General Manager) and I recently drove down this memory lane. The alligators are fine; they don’t look endangered to me. We had just signed a lease on our newest store (#18) in Miami’s Little Havana. 

To celebrate the signing, I ordered alligator tail. It still tastes like chicken.

-Larry Adlerstein