Anonymous Poster
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- Joined
- Sep 27, 2005
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.....gator slide of the season I guess. Poor thing. It's so dry here in central Florida right now, it was little more than a thin line in the dirt surrounded by some dusty footprints. I reckon he is wandering around looking for some water. I've gotten used to seeing them around by now, their heads barely poking above the water, eyes scanning the surface, waiting for some unsuspecting impromptu meal to wander by.
I visited Florida from Texas when I was a kid, long before I ever knew I would be moving here. We barely scraped up the money for gas and food and tickets to Disney World so my uncle invited us to stay with him in Merritt Island so that we wouldn't have to fork out for a hotel. I think we were the only family that smuggled bologna sandwiches into Disney World in a shoulder bag. Or maybe not...but the free lodging was too good to pass up.
It seems to me that kids back then were always treated like second class citizens, so it came as no real surprise when we were informed after supper that we would be bunking in the moldy old travel trailer out behind the house, while mom and dad took the air conditioned guest room in the house.
My uncle's house was an old cracker style thing with a tin roof, a wrap around porch, and sat up on stilts right on the edge of a marsh surrounded by cypress trees. It was a really neat place, but coming from a ranch style wood frame home that sat right on the ground, and not being exposed to anything other than that up to that point, it looked like something right off of the weekly t v program 'Gentle Ben'.
"It'll be fun," my mom said, "like camping out."
Well, okay, whatever you say.
"Better take a leak now if ya have to, as there ain't no facilities in the trailer and you don't want to be crossin' the yard in the dark." Said uncle Mark, clearly unfamiliar with the sporadic operation of the juvenile plumbing system.
"Why's that?" asked my brother, the oldest, the authority on just about everything and pretty much the spokesman for the height challenged members of the family.
"Gator'll gitcha."
Not gator 'might' get you, or gator 'could' get you, but gator 'will' get you.
"Can't keep chickens out here." uncle Mark went on, "in fact just last week I lost a good dog. Gator got him."
He walked us to the trailer carrying a large flashlight, checking the bushes and even shined the light under the trailer reminding us once again not to leave the safety of the trailer in the night. For anything. I think the point was pretty well made as he had to practically give birth to all four of us before he could get loose and go back to the house.
We got settled in, a fan mounted in one of the windows almost drowning out the buzzing of the mosquitos and the croaking of the frogs and almost stirring up enough air to make the heat bearable.
Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up, you guessed it, needing to releive myself in the most awful way. I woke my brother.
"Larry, I havta pee."
"So go!"
"You heard uncle Mark, we're not supposed to leave because of the alligators.'
"Oh bull pucky, he just said that to keep us from buggin' them going back and forth to the house all night. Just go!"
"Go with me."
"NO I'm not goin' with you. Just take the light and run real fast."
Uncle Mark had left the flashlight with us before he went back to the house, and I had watched this grown man, probably in his forties back then, literally sprint the twenty or so yards back to the house. If he was fooling us, then he was one of the best leg pullers I had ever seen.
I took the light and stood at the little door debating. Even went as far as to open the door to do some more debating, letting in God knows how many mosquitos in the process. I flipped on the light and shined it around the yard. If you've never seen a cypress tree in the dark, I can tell you that it is not a pretty sight. Draped in spanish moss and crawling with vines they look like they're alive and moving in the shadows.
I'm standing there with my legs crossed, I was about eight I guess, with a bladder the size of a peanut, and had just about made up my mind to risk it, when the light fell on two shining objects at the edge of the marsh. I squinted as hard as I could trying to figure out what I was seeing, but all I could make out was those two glowing discs.
Suddenly, although I had never seen the shine of a gators eyes in lamp light, I knew instinctively that that was precisely what I was seeing. A moment later, with a lunge and a slap of his tail he did a complete flip and dove into the water. He was probably about six feet long.
It's a good thing that it was so early in the morning. The steps leading up to the trailer had plenty of time to dry before morning so nobody was any the wiser.
I visited Florida from Texas when I was a kid, long before I ever knew I would be moving here. We barely scraped up the money for gas and food and tickets to Disney World so my uncle invited us to stay with him in Merritt Island so that we wouldn't have to fork out for a hotel. I think we were the only family that smuggled bologna sandwiches into Disney World in a shoulder bag. Or maybe not...but the free lodging was too good to pass up.
It seems to me that kids back then were always treated like second class citizens, so it came as no real surprise when we were informed after supper that we would be bunking in the moldy old travel trailer out behind the house, while mom and dad took the air conditioned guest room in the house.
My uncle's house was an old cracker style thing with a tin roof, a wrap around porch, and sat up on stilts right on the edge of a marsh surrounded by cypress trees. It was a really neat place, but coming from a ranch style wood frame home that sat right on the ground, and not being exposed to anything other than that up to that point, it looked like something right off of the weekly t v program 'Gentle Ben'.
"It'll be fun," my mom said, "like camping out."
Well, okay, whatever you say.
"Better take a leak now if ya have to, as there ain't no facilities in the trailer and you don't want to be crossin' the yard in the dark." Said uncle Mark, clearly unfamiliar with the sporadic operation of the juvenile plumbing system.
"Why's that?" asked my brother, the oldest, the authority on just about everything and pretty much the spokesman for the height challenged members of the family.
"Gator'll gitcha."
Not gator 'might' get you, or gator 'could' get you, but gator 'will' get you.
"Can't keep chickens out here." uncle Mark went on, "in fact just last week I lost a good dog. Gator got him."
He walked us to the trailer carrying a large flashlight, checking the bushes and even shined the light under the trailer reminding us once again not to leave the safety of the trailer in the night. For anything. I think the point was pretty well made as he had to practically give birth to all four of us before he could get loose and go back to the house.
We got settled in, a fan mounted in one of the windows almost drowning out the buzzing of the mosquitos and the croaking of the frogs and almost stirring up enough air to make the heat bearable.
Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up, you guessed it, needing to releive myself in the most awful way. I woke my brother.
"Larry, I havta pee."
"So go!"
"You heard uncle Mark, we're not supposed to leave because of the alligators.'
"Oh bull pucky, he just said that to keep us from buggin' them going back and forth to the house all night. Just go!"
"Go with me."
"NO I'm not goin' with you. Just take the light and run real fast."
Uncle Mark had left the flashlight with us before he went back to the house, and I had watched this grown man, probably in his forties back then, literally sprint the twenty or so yards back to the house. If he was fooling us, then he was one of the best leg pullers I had ever seen.
I took the light and stood at the little door debating. Even went as far as to open the door to do some more debating, letting in God knows how many mosquitos in the process. I flipped on the light and shined it around the yard. If you've never seen a cypress tree in the dark, I can tell you that it is not a pretty sight. Draped in spanish moss and crawling with vines they look like they're alive and moving in the shadows.
I'm standing there with my legs crossed, I was about eight I guess, with a bladder the size of a peanut, and had just about made up my mind to risk it, when the light fell on two shining objects at the edge of the marsh. I squinted as hard as I could trying to figure out what I was seeing, but all I could make out was those two glowing discs.
Suddenly, although I had never seen the shine of a gators eyes in lamp light, I knew instinctively that that was precisely what I was seeing. A moment later, with a lunge and a slap of his tail he did a complete flip and dove into the water. He was probably about six feet long.
It's a good thing that it was so early in the morning. The steps leading up to the trailer had plenty of time to dry before morning so nobody was any the wiser.
