Tuesday, September 3, 2019

I Ran Over an Alligator


I have recently been thinking about different short and interesting stories of my life they don't fit anywhere special but they are interesting to me and I wanted to start sharing them. Here is my first one.

One Sunday night, while I was driving back to Miami, Florida after attending a singles conference in the middle of the state. This was about 1983 or so. I forget what road I was driving on but it was a two-lane road down the middle of the state by the Everglades. I had two friends in the car but they were sleeping. I suddenly saw the alligator laying in the middle of the road, across both lanes of traffic. He was a big one and his head was in my lane. I was also traveling a little above the speed limit. So, I quickly decided to go over his tail in the other lane. Luckily there was no oncoming traffic. I want to avoid hitting his head with all those teeth and I wanted to go over the thinnest part of the gator. Mostly, I didn't want any flat tires. My friends woke up when I drove over the tail, and the bump, bump woke them. I didn't stop I kept driving, I didn't want to find out how mad, hurt or anything else about that gator. I was very lucky and I didn't have any damage to my car or tires just a little acceleration in my heart rate and a story to share. This was before cell phone and if I had suffered any damage to my car I would have been stuck there until another car came along. And who knows how long that would have taken. Yup, I was lucky.
Picture is of me holding a baby gator many years later. 


2 comments:

  1. Wasn't that the YSA conference at Eckerd College? I remember that. But, I didn't hit any gators.

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  2. What made you so much braver on 2009? That little bugger still has lots of sharp teeth! Sure admire your faith that God was with you.

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