Another Walk in the Park

When my son Dave was here for the annual rite of spring training, he accompanied me on a couple of my pretty much daily walks in the park (see the Other Walk). Lake Seminole Park is pretty big and there is quite a bit to see there, if your looking. On Friday morning, as I was getting ready to take yet another walk in the park, we talked at length about whether he felt like he might wanted to come along. It went something like this: "Wanna go?" "O.K.". (If this seems short or abrupt, see this.) It was kind of an exhausting conversation, actually, and I'm pretty sure he feels the same.

Off we went to the park. It's a really short walk to the entrance to the park. Maybe 120 yards or thereabouts, so we got there fairly quickly. Dave really hadn't seen me walk much since the whole deal with the heart thing, so just as we entered the park, he sounded a little surprised (and fairly gabby, now that I think of it) when he said, "You walk pretty fast". Well, we had been talking about possibly seeing the alligators from the Other Walk so I said something like, "Fast enough to get out of the way so far." He told me that I was just walking pretty fast. Oh, O.K., I get it now. See that? It's what happens when you're over-communicating. I'm hoping we can keep that in check.

Most of the time when I get into the park (from a remote back entrance) I turn right and head for the two mile path, then take the one mile cut-off and then go where I think like I can see something interesting. On this day, however, I know where I want to take Dave. We turn left. We walk through a small parking lot and then down a winding, crushed shell pathway next to one of the many absolutely splendid ponds in the park. In this area there are a number of Bottle Brush plants hugging the pond. They look a lot like brush hones to me but with a lot more color. In this, as well as many other areas of the park, there are usually a slew of water birds along the shore. As we walk along about five or six feet from the edge, we see some different kinds of ducks (mallards, blacks, wood, daffy?), anhingas (what the heck are they?), cormorants (like water squirrels), and moorhens with their beaks like Halloween candy. A little further on we cross a road and there is a small inlet to another pond. Carefully we look down into the water to see if the big mama alligator is there with her brood as she has been for the last few weeks. She is. And there are two of her little guys with her (alligator stew: it's an mp3 for jf). These baby alligators are about twelve to fourteen inches long. She's about seven or eight feet long. We inch a little closer. Now about six or seven feet from the teeth. She gives a mighty twitch of her tail and disappears into the culvert under the road, taking the babies with her. Well... The mighty twitch scared the crap out of the both of us (but of course we would later deny it). We wander on to look at this other pond with more birds and a nice array of turtles. Turtles are nice. And they rarely attack.

On the way out of the park I stupidly mentioned that I'd never seen a snake in the park. I guess it's just that kind of day. It seems that neither of us can shutup. As we went through the small parking lot on the way to the exit from the park, there was, of course, a snake, about two feet long. Possibly a young Yellow Rat Snake. It looked kind of dead, but you never can tell. We felt that we had to prod it into action. It wasn't cooperating. We tired of that and continued home. At that point I also mentioned that I'd never seen a pot of gold in the park either. Unfortunately, that didn't work out.

These walks used to provide me with some really nice solitude and peace of mind. I could experience the flora and fauna of the Florida west coast. I never had to say a word. Now, I'm exhausted. Time for a Yankee game and a beer. Something I can cope with.

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just a thought. bill brower, 13-Mar-2004

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