Guest Editorial from a WaterClaim member:

Judging by the deathly silence of its approach and the power building up in its haunches, everyone watching could tell that the tiger was stalking my young daughter.  Her back was to it as she sat in her red wagon.  Fear-stricken, my sister gripped my arm and watched in numbed quiet.  I could not.  Instinct took over.  I was in my own yard, and the neighbor’s tiger cub was about to attack my daughter!  This called for action!

I began running, but I was far enough away that I wouldn’t get there in time.  So, I yelled to get its attention off my daughter.  My daughter looked at me rather than noticing the danger approaching her.  Thankfully, the tiger startled long enough to stop the attack, gather its wits again, then focus on its enemy – me.  So be it!  Leave my daughter alone! 

It leaped.

Again, instinct took over, and my hand shot up to protect my body.  That’s where the cub set its jaws, clamping hard with my right thumb in its mouth and my palm and wrist pierced by the teeth.  This was a young tiger, so I was surprised by the pain inflicted.  With my left hand, I grabbed the tiger’s jaws and began straining to make him release.  My sister -- now out of her shock – went into a flurry of simultaneous motion.  She scooped up my daughter, ran to the neighbor’s house, and began banging on the doorbell.

By this time, I’d wrestled the tiger’s jaws off my hand and held him in a grip that kept him unable to bite me while pinned to the ground well enough that he couldn’t run after anyone else.  So, when the neighbor came to the door, she saw past my sister and noticed that I had her tiger wrestled down.

“Release him this instant!  You don’t understand how to manage him!”  She ran to us and shoved me aside as she picked up her beast.  Giving me a final glare, she trounced past my family and back into her house, slamming the door closed behind her.

My sister and I stared at each other for a moment.  Neither of us spoke.  Slowly, her jaw opened and her head shook from side-to-side in quiet disbelief about what had just happened.  I could see the righteous anger slowly creeping to the surface.  She strode over to me, took me gently by the elbow, ushered me and my daughter into our house, and said, “You, go take care of yourselves for a minute.  I’ll be back.”  With that, she left.  I quickly wrapped a towel around my hand then took my daughter to her room to get her started playing with something on her own.  Through the window, I could see my sister on the neighbor’s porch.  She was speaking quickly and had my neighbor’s arm in a firm, pulling grip.  Finally, the neighbor nodded and shrugged.  They were on their way to my house.

They came right on into the living room as I came out of the bedroom.

Pointing to my hand, the neighbor said, “Let me see your hand.”

I sat on the couch and began unwrapping.  The neighbor sat across from me.  My sister lurked overhead, almost as if to watch for and halt the inevitable flight of my neighbor who was just in the midst of jabbing her nails at the scratches on my hand. 

“Look,” she said.  “He hardly broke the skin.  You’ll be fine.”

“And here?”  I pointed at the deep gouges made by the tiger’s piercing teeth.

“Really, you do over-dramatize, don’t you?  My baby was just playing.  So he got a little enthusiastic.  You’ll be fine.”

My sister was about to jump the lady, I could tell.  So, I began a forceful speech to try to make this woman understand the import of the issue.  “Your tiger is relatively small now, but that’s compared to me.  I’m bigger than he is right now.  My daughter is not.  He was stalking my daughter…”

“He was merely play…”

“You’re going to listen to me!”

My neighbor recoiled and acted about to bolt in her “misunderstood” disgust.  My sister slipped behind her and put a hand firmly on her shoulder.

I continued, “That tiger is small now, but he’s going to get big very soon.  And, when he does, you’re not going to be able to ‘manage’ him.  Your neighbors aren’t going to be strong enough to pull him away when he attacks you and…”

“But, he wouldn’t…”  My sister’s hand gripped more tightly, and the neighbor hushed.

“And, when he attacks you, there won’t be a neighbor around to pull him off.”

“Well, you don’t know him like I do.  This isn’t all serious and dire like you’re getting here.  Just leave him alone.  He’s wonderful and you simply don’t understand that.  You don’t understand him like I do.  And, there are no city ordinances against having him, so he stays.”

With that, she stood, shoved tearfully past my sister, and strode haughtily from my house. 

Indeed, she was right.  The law allowed her to have a tiger and no amount of complaining could make the authorities hear me on it.  So, we ended up moving.

A year later, I read in the paper that, indeed, the tiger had grown.  The tiger-owner buried her own son a few weeks ago.

She still has the tiger.

Nebraska has a tiger by the tail, and it will be bigger at the end of 2007.  And, it will stay big.  If we neighbors don’t pull together to stop our fellow Nebraskans from keeping the danger around, we’re either going to have to move or someone’s going to get hurt.  There are good ways to approach slammed doors, and hiding in our homes while relying on the authorities to handle it isn’t one of them.  WaterClaim has been sounding the alarm for two years.  And, it isn’t just one region’s problem because they happen to currently live closer to it right now.  It is Nebraska’s problem.

Gentlemen, Nebraska needs to do more than just “manage” the problem.  And, we can do that while making sure Nebraska’s sons and daughters aren’t harmed.