Now, I did some checking, but I can’t confirm that gators get stymied much by bushes. In some cases, they will hide in the bushes to ambush prey. Keep that in mind if you plan to stroll close to bush-lined ponds in South Carolina or Florida.

I imagine the thickness of the shrubs might be an important factor in slowing down gator movement. But didn’t Mark already move the bushes out of the way for that gator in yesterday’s strip? Why is he doing it again, unless Rivera is replaying the tape to run out the week. And panel 4 seems to imply there is a missing panel preceding that one, else what or who is Mark reacting to?

Helpful Hint: I read that the alligator can run short distances up to about 9 ½ mph!  That’s when chasing prey or tourists who want to feed the gators and take selfies beside them. So, use the zoom feature of your camera for those close-up photos. And work on your sprints.

Are the Cheddersons from out of town or maybe have never played on golf courses in the southeast?  Well, who can tell. And frankly, who cares, since the whole point here is to get in another scenario of humanity’s interactions with wildlife. And that awareness is part of the foundation of Mark Trail. Mark has been fighting an uphill battle for over 70 years, and it doesn’t look like he’s winning.

Art Dept. The wavy lines that we’ve been observing on Rusty, then Brett, and now both of the Cheddersons (panel 3) have lately been discussed in the Comments section. And here they are again, but only on the Cheddersons. Perhaps they represent the heat of the moment, i.e. some anxiety and anger.

I consulted the Lexicon of Comicana, by Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Boner’s Ark, et al.). He has a short bit on wavy lines: Wavy “heat” lines from hot drinks are called Indotherms. Wavy “hot” lines from the sun are called Solrads. Nothing about stink lines, though! I totally overlooked the Indotherm definition yesterday, by the way. Just a small note to Self to take more time.

Gee, I didn’t know that Happy actually works for Chet Chedderson, the obnoxious shipping magnate, and his man-child, Brett. Or maybe Chet just assumes Happy knows what to do. But Mark and Happy should know that the gator is not likely going to chase anybody and that the best thing to do is just play around him. A better outcome would be that Chet creates a tourist attraction out of the gator, similar to his “dangerous” water slide park. He can call the course “Gator Golf.”

Okay, this ho-hum story has to have some drama and there isn’t much of it in golf, unless you are a golfer. Hence, the alligator. Maybe things will get more exciting if Mother Cheshire’s prized peacock wanders onto the scene and becomes the gator’s afternoon snack! I’d love to see how Cherry and  Honest Ernest react to that situation!

Say, did you notice that  Cheshire and Chedderson (a cheese name pun) are both names for cheeses? A coincidence? Or the newest global conspiracy!?

Art Dept. Not sure what those squiggly lines symbolize in panel 1. Is Brett having a heat stroke? Is he burning up? Is his head shivering or trembling? We can rightfully claim some confusion, because Rivera used similar lines around Rusty last Friday, to show he was shivering after sliding into very cold water.

Given how this strip has lately been drawn, I have to admit that Mark’s head in panel 3 is a well-designed rugged and expressive head. A lot is due to a good application of thick and thin lines by Rivera, supported by Mark’s expression. And it’s an order of magnitude beyond the cartoony images in the other panels.