Road Gators and Redbox Hogs

Once you've lived in Florida for awhile, you begin to realize that gators are everywhere, especially when you're in a hurry. The worst part is they just have no consideration. It's been like that since the years when hunting them was illegal.

I think it went to their heads.

You have to stop and wait for them to cross the road. They take all the best parking places. And they never can make up their mind at the Redbox.

Bill and Carole (as we'll call them), our visitors from Missouri, had been to Gatorland and knew the reptiles weren't stacked up like that in the wild but wondered just how hard it would be to see them where they really lived.

So Laura, being a middle school science teacher and priding herself on being able to show people the real Florida, assured them we would see the American Alligator in its natural habitat. She said things things like, "My favorite spot," and, "The Old Grouchy One living in that bar ditch..." (At least I'm pretty sure she was talking about a gator.)

Off we went, to Merritt Island National Wildlife refuge, due east of Titusville and adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center. There in the refuge, there's a wildlife loop - a raised pathway through a lot of water, scrubby little bushes, palmettoes and short trees.

As we quietly crept along, tires crunching on the gravel, we all spoke in hushed tones to avoid spooking wildlife. I scanned the ditches amid the water grasses from my window, and pointed out the pathways and holes left by the gators as they sullenly wove through the vegitation from place to place.

Today they were just doing a good job of staying out of sight.

I thought about our visitors and how glad I was to see them. They had been dealing with the tragic loss of their 21 year-old son some months ago.

Now I have limited experience with grief, but after my parents died within a few months of each other more than a decade ago, my brother and sisters and I learned to deal with it in our own unique ways.

My heart ached deeply for Bill and Carole, though I knew I couldn't begin to understand what they are going through.

I treasure our own sons through our worries about their challenges - large and small. Each has chosen a lifestyle with more than the average amount of risk. Two have been deployed to Afghanistan, one twice, while two are correctional officers in a medium/high security state facility in Oklahoma.

We are proud of each of them, and not a day goes by that we don't pray for them.

I hope we never have to hear the news that came that day months ago to our friends.

I finally spotted a small gator's head protruding from the water about 50 yards out. He was probably a five footer, judging by the distance between eyes and nostrils.

In the late afternoon stillness, we embraced the quiet moment with our friends and left yesterday and tomorrow to their own devices.