After listening to the Tustin variation, I set to wondering if Orange County has its own, identifiable versions of urban legends. Sure enough, it had. Several Irvine residents assured me that a FOAF had discovered an alligator in Woodbridge Lake. It seems that a child that went to Disney World in Florida and brought home a small amphibian that grew too large for the back yard pond. The best variation, though, indicating that Southern Californians are inventive legend-shapers, was the reputed Caiman in Back Bay.
Urban legends are a quirky subdivision of folklore.
Broadly speaking, they are contemporary anecdotes or beliefs that are born in a particular era, are repeated, spread, change, and eventually disappear. Very broadly speaking, they may even be true. If urban legends tell us about human nature in general, the way the story is configured reveals even more. The exemplary incidents we tell ourselves in Orange County bear this out. Some tales have disappeared altogether from Southern California lore.