Dinosaur in L.A.

In the Deep South, extinction clocks out after happy hour.

My mom — let’s call her Grace, because that’s her name — worked at a small women’s wear shop in Eufaula, Alabama. That’s in South Alabama, but the folks there call it “L.A.” short for Lower Alabama. Which is about as glamorous as it sounds.

The store closed at six, which meant by 6:15 she was at the Holiday Inn bar with her girlfriends: Edwina, Thelma, and Mary-Margaret. And let’s be clear — these women didn’t just show up to sip cocktails casually; they were committed professionals. That particular night, they’d already had a couple before they left the store, thanks to the bottle they kept hidden under the counter. By the time they hit the Holiday Inn, they weren’t starting fresh. They were already well into their cups.

One night, Grace left the bar and headed home, crossing the long bridge over the lake. Halfway across, her headlights landed on something standing upright in the middle of the road.
Two legs. Upright.
Green and leathery, a row of prehistoric spikes marching down its back.

Not a squirrel. Not a dog. Not a raccoon.

Nope. In her mind? Dinosaur.

Now, remember — this was the late ’70s. Spielberg hadn’t given us Jurassic Park yet. Dinosaurs weren’t roaring on movie screens; they were waddling on The Flintstones and posing on Sinclair Gas Station signs. Still, Grace’s brain flipped straight to prehistoric nightmare.

She knew this couldn’t be happening.
She also knew what she was looking at.

So — ER? Rehab? Hard to say.

Either way, there was a dinosaur staring into her headlights.

She made it home around nine and called me in Atlanta. Here was Grace, whisper-yelling into the phone like she was afraid a pack of Velociraptors might hear her:

“Scott, I just saw a dinosaur.”

My response? I completely lost it. I laughed so hard I sounded like a dying accordion — wheeze, honk, snot — the whole gamut, chuckles to snorts. Meanwhile, she was dead serious, and the more I laughed, the more indignant she got. I finally told her to pour one more drink, go to bed, and call me in the morning.

But Grace wasn’t done yet. She called her whole crew — Edwina, Thelma, Mary-Margaret. Even her sister Ethel. She spread the word: “Dinosaur on the loose in Eufaula.” This was her Paul Revere moment. “The Dinos are coming!”

Morning rolled around. Grace tuned in to the local radio for the usual overnight disasters — tractor fires, loose livestock, whatever. And then came a special bulletin:

“Attention, folks. A young boy staying at the Holiday Inn has lost his pet iguana. If anyone has seen him, please let the front desk know. He answers to Freddy, and he likes grapes.”

That was it.
Not a T-Rex. Not a raptor.
Freddy. A two-foot iguana with a predilection for Thompson Seedless.

Grace nearly passed out from the whiplash of relief and humiliation. Luckily, she wasn’t the only Eufaula native who’d been questioning her sanity. The police department had been swamped with calls that night. Most folks swore they’d seen “a small dinosaur-like creature” on the U.S. 82 crossing, although one guy claimed it was twenty feet tall. Another “reliable source” said it had been smoking a cigarette and carrying a six-pack of Bud. South Alabama, ladies and gentlemen.

So yeah, Grace was embarrassed. She wasn’t looking forward to her walk of shame into the Diana Shop.

Still, it wasn’t every night an ancient-looking lizard stopped traffic.

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