TALES FROM THE OTTER SIDE

Many years ago, two days before the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I went into New York City with two of my friends, Stew Bacheler and his then-wife, An. I had flown up from Florida days earlier to attend his 50th birthday party in Tom’s River, where they lived. They took me into the city a few days later to see what was going on down at Ground Zero. To say it had an affect on me would be an understatement, but after spending the morning there, we went for NY pizza – the very best in the world! – and then off to the Central Park Zoo. That’s what this little story is about… an incident at the zoo. I had never been there, so it was a nice treat.

We walked around and saw all sorts of animals; a bird sanctuary, a polar bear, seals, penguins, and many more, indoors and out. As we continued along the paths, we stumbled upon a good-sized pool of muddy water with what looked like river banks all around it. It seemed natural, too, with lots of ground areas full of plants to rest upon the shore.

There was a barrier that kept us from getting too close to the swimming creature. On the right side of us stood a few ladies caring for a handful or two of young children. I’d say they were around ten-years-old, give or take. We leaned on the barrier far enough to the left side of them that there was a nice gap between us. Just the way I liked it.

In the water was a single river otter that swam back and forth from the opposite bank to the children. Back-and-forth he went, from bank to bank. Back-and-forth. One way he would swim on his back, and the other way he would flip over and swim on his stomach. The little guy was having lots of fun exercising and entertaining the children.

I turned to my friends and said, “I’ll bet you I can make that otter swim to me.”

“Yeah, right, Dave,” was the response from both of them.

“I’m telling you, I can!” I insisted.

“Uh huh, right,” they answered in tandem.

“I’ll bet you two dollars he will swim to me or all of us.”

“OK, it’s a bet.” We shook hands and I tried to formulate an effective plan in my head. I had no idea because it was just a simple joke worth the bet. Either I would be able to talk to the animals or I’d make a fool of myself, which is usually what happens.

“Come on, Dave, this is taking too long.”

I waited until Mr. Otter was on the far side bank and then blurted out the first thing that popped into my head. It worked for Tarzan. “UNGAWA!” And just like that, the little critter immediately swam to me without missing a stroke, and he continued to do so; from the bank to me, to the bank and me. “UNGAWA! UNGAWA! And he swam to me until we walked away. So had the women and their cluster of kids. They were long gone. I guess I had ruined their little show with the otter. How selfish I was to do that. Meanwhile…

“Where’s my $2.00?” I asked as we continued to walk. Stew pulled two crisp dollars out of his pocket. Reluctantly, of course, because even I didn’t believe I was capable of luring the little guy over to our embankment.

We ambled along a few paths and, about 20 minutes later, I heard it. Those children were crossing a bridge we were about to walk under. All of them yelled over each other, UNGAWA! UNGAWA! UNGAWA! UNGAWA! UNGAWA!

We really laughed, especially me.

I said, “Could you imagine them driving back to New Jersey? In the family minivan, as those kids UNGAWA their poor mothers all the way home?”