It wasn’t as rough as I expected. I don’t think anybody bled a single drop, and only a few times did anyone slam to the floor.

I attended a roller derby for the first time on Saturday night, and it happened to be championship night for the Dallas Derby Devils league. In this league the rink is flat, which was much different from the sloped tracks I had seen in movies.

I found out about it through a co-worker who is an amateur filmmaker. When he isn’t shooting weddings or documentaries or women on skates hip-checking one another, he helps run the website BigBadSportsDaddy.com. He’s the one whose movie set I visited to do still shots for the media release.

(click any pic to enlarge)

I called my buddy Alvis, also a photography buff, who coincidentally was fresh off his first viewing of the new movie Whip It. He came over and picked me up for the hour-long drive. We arrived to a crowded parking lot and had to park in the grass.

The men skated an exhibition match while the announcer’s explained to “derby virgins” just how it all works. I was glad for that, because I hadn’t the foggiest notion of the rules or the players’ motivation. In fact, I was surprised there was no ball involved. There was in 1975’s Rollerball.

The ladies had handles like “Uma Vermin,” and “Jackie O’Nice Ass.” Several were very clever, but I left any chance of recollecting them on the hard metal bleachers with my program.

It was a fun night, but I don’t feel compelled to go again.

Heart
Pump Pump Pump
Mimry (memory?) in my heart
Love love love
I love my heart

Mrs. Kenely (his 1st grade teacher)
I like her
I like her a lot
Oe (oh) yes I do
Mrs. Kenely
I rember (remember) her evry (every) day
Now I am at home
I miss you
bye Mrs. Kenely bye

Noah (his best buddy)
nice, playful
Laughing, bouncing, sleeping
He is my buddy
Friend

Butterflise (Butterflies)
Btterflise here Butterflise there
Butterflise on my bushis (bushes)
Sucing (sucking) necter (nectar) in the flowers

This was once the largest chest of drawers in the world. Built in 1920, it stands 38 feet tall in High Point, North Carolina. Now the tallest stands at another end of town, at 80 feet. As of this writing, I haven’t seen that one yet.

I realized about halfway into my drive to the airport that I hadn’t packed any dress socks. I arrived late enough that I just wanted to grab a quick bite to eat and then settle into my hotel room.

On the walk to the hotel’s front desk the next morning, my feet felt cool and free inside my stiff dress shoes. It was quite liberating. The cuffs of my pants bunched down over my shoes just enough to conceal my socklessness. I had a secret.

Sitting in the car, however, I could plainly see my bare ankles.

At the store to buy socks, I parked next to a man standing next to a pickup truck. He sported a salt-and-pepper ponytail and wore wrap-around sunglasses that hid the direction of his gaze. I ignored him and wondered how closely he watched while I secured my laptop bag in the trunk and went in the store.

Back out in the parking lot, socks in hand, I saw the man in the same spot. I sat in the driver’s seat, door still ajar, and quickly realized that because TSA doesn’t let passengers travel with handy things like keychain pocket knives, I had nothing to cut the confounding plastic filament that bound the socks together. It was so tight I couldn’t get my teeth around it to bite it off. Man living in the South, standing beside a pickup truck parked at Wal-Mart? Yep, it’s a guarantee.

I looked over at the man standing next to the truck. I stood. “Excuse me. You wouldn’t happen to have a pocketknife, would you?”

“You know what? I do,” he said.

He reached down below his waist, an area that the side of the truck concealed from my view, and then pulled up a blade about four inches long. It was slightly curved and part of it was serrated.

I approached the stranger wielding a knife and held out the socks. “See? I don’t really have anything to cut this.”

He reached out with the knife. “Here, why don’t you hold it,” I said. “I don’t want you to worry about cutting me.”

His calloused, sun-baked hands pulled the “T” at one end of the plastic filament to make room for the blade. “Well, I’m just worried I’m gonna cut your socks.”

A moment later he was successful, but that’s not really the point of this story.

While I was putting on my socks and shoes, driver door now wide open, the man struck up a conversation. It turns out he was born and raised in the area, but his son went to college at a small, distinguished, private university about 30 miles from where I grew up (and about 800 miles from that parking lot), and the same son went on to a Kentucky seminary that one of my best friends attended, in a tiny town I visited more than once. I didn’t ask how he started in a predominantly Church of Christ four-year college and ended up in a mostly Methodist seminary.

I tied my laces and looked at my watch. “Well, I better get going. Thanks again. Good talking to you,” I said.

“You, too. Have a safe trip.”

Thanks to his sunglasses, I never looked him in the eyes, but I think they would have been kind.

“I’m going to get a picture just to show J there are alligators here,” J said.

“Sure. Me, too,” I said and lifted my camera to my face.

(click any pic to enlarge)

We each shot a few pictures. Our relatively loud shutters did not faze the reptile, but a few of the shorebirds walked several steps in the opposite direction.

I wondered whether the heavy tripod I had with me would slow down a charging alligator even if I happened to score a direct hit. Running away from such a fast-moving predator at that distance was not an option, unless I could climb a tree before it reached me. What was the protocol? Wait until the last second and then jump over it?

Better yet: WWSID? What Would Steve Irwin Do?

The gator suddenly lifted its head and opened its jaws. It bit down and we heard crunching. From the sides of its mouth hung the distinct legs of a blue crab.

Our shutter fingers went crazy clicking pictures. My manual focus, manual everything lens kept me guessing a bit at first, but J kept his finger down for rapid-fire photos.

The gator opened only far enough to bite down again, and we heard more sounds of the crab’s carapace being broken to pieces. This repeated a few times until the gator swallowed its prey.

I fumbled with my camera bag to pull out my video camera, but by the time I pointed it the right direction, the gator was finished. He sank back into the water and slowly swam away from us.

I had never seen an alligator outside a zoo or an aquarium’s rainforest exhibit. After that and some good looks at various bird species, we returned to the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge several times during our Sanibel Island trip. For me it was as rewarding as the beach, if not more.

We saw more gators, but never any that were feeding. I don’t know exactly what they consider a respectable distance, but apparently we never broke that invisible barrier. If they noticed us at all, they did a great job of hiding it.

Note: the photos featured in this post were cropped for online display

Start the sound clip below and then click the thumbnail image to get an idea just how much he ended up hating it (earbuds will immerse you, but speakers will work):

I didn’t specify when he said it, because he told me that more than once during the first several days of our Sanibel Island vacation.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, son,” I said. “I would like for you to go with me in the morning. It’s my last day here, and on Saturday mornings you and I always have our father-son time.”

“Okay,” he said.

On top of that, he had another incentive.

His mother and I had told him that he would not be allowed to keep a new body board we had bought (for $10) if he didn’t try it in the ocean first. He had nearly a full week left on the trip, and his never going to the beach was not an option; there was no guarantee that an adult would be available to stay with him.

We got out a little later than I had hoped, but still early enough not to worry with sunscreen. Palm trees and strangler figs waved above us as we made our way down the driveway and then the narrow, shaded path to the beach.

Out in the surf, up to about my waist, I helped Benjamin climb aboard the fabric-covered Styrofoam board. It didn’t float him as well as I had hoped and he kept slipping off. The small waves coming at him splashed saltwater into his mouth, so we turned the board 180 degrees.

“There, now the waves won’t splash water in your face,” I said. “Try again.”

He did, and fell off within a second of getting on board.

“We need to move it closer, Daddy,” he said.

I was glad he was thinking of ways to make it work, instead of quitting. “Okay, let’s try that.”

We walked the board until the water was up to Benjamin’s waist. He climbed on and road a small wave up to the shore.

He laughed. Then he started spitting again. That saltwater wasn’t his favorite taste.

“Let’s look for shells,” Benjamin said.

“You don’t want to try again?”

“No, Daddy,” he said between spits.

We spent the next half hour looking for cat’s paw shells that he could use on a necklace he intended to make, and for translucent shells his mother had been collecting for one of her own. Then Benjamin said his tummy hurt and that he needed to return to the beach house. At the time, I had forgot that he had woke up at about 5 a.m. to bolt to the bathroom while complaining of nausea.

I checked my watch. We had been out long enough without sunscreen regardless of the time of day. “Let’s head back.”

Before we had made it 10 steps, Benjamin said his foot hurt and he started limping and asked me to carry him. I looked at his foot and saw a superficial scratch, but nothing bleeding. “Keep walking with me, and keep your flip-flops on,” I said.

He whined and complained for a couple of minutes. I didn’t want to listen to that, but I also didn’t want him to remember his latest beach outing as a negative experience. “Son, if you can make it all the way to the spot we left your body board without whining or complaining, I will give you a piggy-back from there all the way back to the house.”

I didn’t hear a distraught sound out of him for the next few minutes, all the way to the spot we had left our things. After a few steps carrying him and all of our gear, I knew I would need backup before making it all the way. I dialed Shannon’s number and she agreed to rendezvous at the trailhead, a good halfway point. We got back without incident.

The next day Shannon called me to let me know that Benjamin spent lots of time playing on his body board and having other fun at the beach.

(click any pic to enlarge)

Benjamin and I had walked down to the beach before anyone else in the house was interested. Just like back home on weekends, we were enjoying our father-son morning time. Moments after we emerged from the shady path and looked out at the endless view due south, I noticed a small, white pickup truck about 200 yards to our left. A few feet from it stood a large group of people, maybe 15 in all, that included only a few adults scattered among children.

We continued ahead toward the Gulf, but stopped several feet short of where the water reached with each overlapping wave. We walked along the freshest line of seashells left behind by the receding tide, in hopes of finding one or two special treasures. While Benjamin sifted through a substantial pile of shells, I kept looking back up at the commotion only a few feet from the brush line. The crowd had dispersed and afforded me my first view of a small area fenced by yellow tape around thin metal poles.

One of them took care of something in their truck while the other constructed a second makeshift fence.

A thin, tan man walking briskly — the only person between us and the group — noticed the direction of my gaze and stopped.

“A sea turtle laid her eggs there and they’re trying to save some of the young,” he said.

“Oh, really? Thanks,” I said.

He smiled and went about his morning walk.

The woman inside the fence knelt and started digging with her right hand. Benjamin looked up and watched her as he slipped a pink and burgundy scallop shell into his pocket. “Daddy, can we go see?” he said.

“Sure, son, let’s go.”

We approached the woman on all fours, who now was about elbow-deep in the hole she had dug. With each scoop she added another handful of loose, dry sand to a small pile on her left. “I’m trying to find out if the crabs have got to this nest,” she said when I asked.

Her co-worker walked back over from the truck, holding something small in her hand. “This little guy didn’t make it,” she said. She gently set a tiny sea turtle on the sand, belly-up. “What about in there?”

“I’m in the chamber, but I haven’t found anything yet.” She looked up at Benjamin. “Come over here if you want a closer look.”

He was still stuck to my side. “It’s okay, go on,” I said, and he made his way to the other side of the fenced area to get a better look down the hole.

“Oh, I think I see one,” Digger said. “Now I just have to use my fingers and dig him out until I can grab him.”

Like a paleontologist unearthing a prehistoric fossil, she carefully cleared sand away from her subject. In this case, however, the reptile was alive and eagerly working to dig its own way out. Its two tiny, active front flippers and sand-covered head did not retract at her touch. She gently pinched its carapace and pull it the last half inch out of the sand. I’m nicknaming him Dig-Dug.

Digger’s co-worker pointed to a spot a few feet away and said, “There’s a fire ant mound there. They probably got this one.” She tilted her head to indicated the dead loggerhead turtle on the sand.

Meanwhile Digger pulled the hatchling’s discarded egg from the chamber, and then cleared more sand to pull out an unhatched egg. I think the plan was to relocate Dig-Dug and his unborn sibling, regardless of whether ghost crabs or fire ants had been the culprits. The mother sea turtle digs a hole, lays her eggs in it, and then refills the hole. Then she leaves them completely at the mercy of whatever finds them.

Momma sea turtles certainly could learn a thing or two from momma birds.

He covers his mouth and nose with one hand and falls backward without bending. His back smacks the water loudly, muffled slightly by his swim shirt, and as he sinks the water quickly sloshes back in to complete his temporary translucent burial.

I review my results on my camera’s LCD.

His head breaks the surface and he rubs his fingertips over his eyes to clear them. “Did you get that one, Dad?” he asks through a wide smile.

“It was pretty good, but can you go again?” I say.

“Yep!”

Rarely when you miss capturing a moment do you get to try again. That moment at a wedding when the groom kisses the bride — sure, you can do a set-up shot, but it just isn’t the same. Same goes for that hug between a diploma-wielding graduate and a teary-eyed, seldom seen relative.

You miss those moments and, well, they’re just gone.

When taking action shots of a seven-year-old jumping into a swimming pool? Opportunities abound. My wife certainly took advantage while I threw the boy up in the air.

My son loves the water and all the wet fun it brings. He wears a swimming shirt that I’m certain must deaden the impact, because he has virtually painlessly performed several huge belly flops and more than one Nestea plunge. If it hurts, then he hides it very well.

Ah, those lazy, crazy days of summer.

Those were the words of the after-hours nurse we called when our son could not sleep due to severe itching. I allayed my son’s fears by demonstrating on my own arm that yanking Scotch tape off doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as pulling off a Band-Aid. Then I dutifully did what the nurse directed and sealed the sample in a zippered sandwich bag.

I felt a bit like MacGuyver. Or maybe George Clooney’s character on “ER.” He was in Peds, after all, and was known to improvise with what he had on hand.

We told the doctor that we had collected and brought in a sample, per the nurse’s orders, and he said, “Yeah, that doesn’t really do anything. There are lots of things like that going around the Internet.”

After we left, bewildered at our boy’s second positive test for strep at the opposite end from where most people get it, I thought maybe the doctor hadn’t understood. We had gleaned that advice from the after-hours nurse we reached through his clinic’s main number. We didn’t subject our son to the first cockamamie medical advice we found on an online forum. In fact, we didn’t research it at all until after talking to the nurse, because she had been our source of terms to search.

Surely their paid professional nurses don’t dispense advice based on their own half-baked Web research. If so, then someone needs to know it and put a stop to it. Here I go, dialing the clinic’s number.

What’s the weirdest medical advice you’ve received from someone who ostensibly could be trusted to dispense it?

Yes, on my last work trip I saw someone with very dark hair and blue eyes; there was a Subway employee sweeping the floor while I ate; and there was a woman who somewhat comically heard me wrong when I mentioned her eyes.

Rather than write separately about all three, I decided to combine them into one person. I hear “real” writers do this all the time, which is one way they are able to put the disclaimer in their books saying, “characters depicted in this work of fiction… not real people… blah blah blah.”

On the plane ride into the customer site (or the nearest airport, anyway), I saw a little girl, maybe about four or five years old, sitting directly across the aisle from me. A scruffy man I guessed to be her grandfather sat next to her. Her hair was very dark — almost black, yet she had pale skin along with bright blue eyes that nearly glowed.

At the Subway, which was the only fast food establishment in the customer’s town or within 15 miles of it, I saw a young, hefty woman sweeping the floor, and except for the parts about her eyes and my getting between her and the Thank You trash can, that scene went down exactly as I described it.

On my way back home, at the airport security point where someone checks the travelers’ ID and boarding pass before letting them go through the scanners, an older woman checked my driver’s license and used her neon yellow highlight pen to make an approving mark on my boarding pass. I noticed her eyes were a shade of green I rarely see, and, hoping that the fact I most likely never would see her again decreased her suspicion that I was flirting with her (I was not), I commented that they were nice. Our dialog played out as I depicted it in “Sweeper’s Peepers.”

So, while the scene itself (except for my stopping Sweeper and talking directly to her) was completely real, the character was a combination of three different people — all complete strangers — whom I saw during the trip. I guess I wrote it as practice just to see how it felt.