The Geckos of Florida

The outdoor Bible readings and recitations were only audienced by some geckos, who enjoyed the food scraps. I began to listen to the calls of the night, under the stars, realizing that the calls that I thought were frogs, saying "Privet", were actually those of geckos. I would find pennies frequently upon waking, in unexpected places along the concrete, plus one or two nickels and dimes, enough to purchase a beverage can for myself, so that I would not be needing to spend anymore money. I contemplated this fact, and read "In God We Trust" on the collected coins, thus decided to share my wealth whenever I myself received lots of pennies. This became a match as to who could give more to who after a while, almost a contest at times, between myself and my little lizard buddies.

At times I would hear birds chirping at night, then little tiny giggles from up in the trees, and I became aware that these creatures could imitate other creatures. I began to make cat meows, and there would be mews from up in the branches. The same sequence happened when I tried dog barking, imagine my surprise at the miniature chihuahua barks from up in the trees. Then, I became convinced that these little creatures might have a voice-over repertoire similar to that of my own.

There were dozens upon dozens of these little creatures who would follow me around by this point in time, entire families of self-proclaimed "geckos". Although the guidebooks would call these creatures by other English and Latin names, I began to call these creatures geckos, also. Their favorite food, a tiny fruit resembling a kumquat, although ten times smaller than a kumquat, was something that I planted in masses, without attempting to eat. I was having a great deal of trouble keeping all of these fellows and frails in comestible goods and bits of paper that might be used as toilet paper or paper napkins; and was still resorting to the use of charity food in order to help feed this clan of little brothers and sisters. The plantings of saw palmettos were something that the geckos enjoyed, however, did not find to be particularly appetizing - the cherry tomatoes were appreciated most highly, as were the grape tomatoes, although gifts of these were in scarce supply. I planted as many packages of tomato seeds as I could locate, and hoped for more.

Fabric bits from sewing projects and original pattern-making ideas were also readily accepted, although, after a while, my tiny quarter-inch square fabric bits were no longer appreciated as much as they had been. I could not seem to explain that I could not drop off larger bits of fabric, unless it was my own property. The geckos had no clue as to what property ownership meant, and wanted larger pieces of fabric from me.

By this time, I found myself purchasing entire pound-sized bags of sunflower seed to scatter into the saw palmettos around the park around gecko breakfast time, which is sunset. I could not see the results of my feeding efforts, however, there was a tremendous amount of noise around me in the bushes immediately around myself; the sounds of hopping, skipping, munching and crunching.

I discovered green anoles, brown anoles, Cuban anoles, Meditteranean geckos, five-lined skinks, fire salamanders, chameleons, six-lined skinks; little lizards in black, brown, gray, green, blue, red, beige, white, pearl, orange - too many varieties to remember, and by the end of four years, some of which were the size of small puppies.