Reggie's Magnificent Escape

We don't have very many local heroes like Reggie. He's a renegade. An outlaw with a rap sheet 7-1/2-feet-long and 120 pounds. In 2007, he escaped what he must have thought was death row.

He wanted to taste freedom again. Taste a life in which he had grown accustomed. Many people tried to capture him over the two years, but he was a slippery character. The thought of someone making shoes, belts, wallets or handbags out of him didn’t sit well with him.

Thinking that a life of solitude would do him good, he hid in a lake for two years while the news of the world passed him by. Little did he know that people would still plot to capture him. Oh, did I mention that Reggie is an alligator.

Here’s where the story gets a little sketchy. Sometime a little after that 2 year period, Reggie decide to pop his head up to get a little sun and that’s when he was noosed by a man with a dog-catcher’s pole and whisked off to a waiting cell at the zoo. That was on May 24, 2007. All the while Reggie thought he was having a bad dream, but it was really a nightmare.

Reggie was first discovered in the water of Lake Machado in August 2005, having allegedly been dumped there by owners who thought him too large to keep as a pet. For the ensuing two years, a parade of would-be captors -- official and unofficial -- tried unsuccessfully to seize him, running up a bill of $200,000. Even the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin was going to take a stab at capturing Reggie, but he never got the chance.

Reggie wasn’t going to take this lying down. The reptile brain was in full swing. The reptile brain has a singular focus: survival. It doesn't think in abstract terms, and doesn't feel complex emotions. Instead, it's responsible for fight-or-flight, hunger and fear, attack or run.

With just a week into his life sentence, it didn’t take Reggie long to plan his escape back to freedom. While zoo keepers thought he was resting, he was busy calculating, strategizing and waiting for the right time.

When the lights went out, Reggie went to work. As the weather gets warm, an alligator’s strength increases and so does its agility. He had to move quickly. He skillfully climbed a chain-link fence at the back of his enclosure, then scurried over a series of brick ridges, all within a matter of minutes.

He hit the ground running and followed another chain-link fence about 500 yards to the loading dock area. The sound and sight of trucks and people startled him so he hid again. The next morning, zoo officials noticed that he was gone and gathered a posse to find him.

They soon found him hiding out near the zoo loading dock. One of the officials jumped on Reggie’s back, threw a t-shirt over Reggie’s head, and wrapped duct tape around his snout. Authorities put the cuffs on him and hustled him back to quarantine.

When Reggie returned back to his new home, his fans were waiting, wearing t-shirts that held his name, taking photos of this once elusive star and chanting, “Reggie. Reggie. Reggie.”

When the yellow truck pulled up to his habitat, five zoo personnel emerged carrying the fugitive, whose face was wrapped in a white towel.

Disappointed and agitated at his capture, Reggie was hissing mad; almost as mad as Paris Hilton when she too was returned to her cell. They took him inside and removed the towel and a black band that bound his mouth. Not wanting to be Reggie’s lunch, they all scattered to safety. Needless to say, they just didn’t want to throw in the towel.

I like Reggie. We can all learn from him. He is represents freedom. He can’t be held down by convention. He doesn’t give up. He honors the relationship he has with himself - it’s more important than anything.

He knows what he wants and he’s not afraid to go after it. We are all escaping to get to spiritual freedom. All we have to do is drop our old ideals and renew ourselves. Renew how we feel about life. Renew how we feel about ourselves and others. Renewal brings freedom.

Freedom brings peace. No matter where you are in your life, you can attain freedom to make you feel alive. That’s what Reggie has. Even though he is in captivity, he is still free. Maybe one day one of us will hold him in our pocket, around our waist, on our arm or our feet, but we won’t forget Reggie. He is a legend.

This weekend be free. Run with the wind. Fly. Be happy. Be free.