Alligator Story – Jennifer’s version

by | Mar 26, 2020

The alligator story. Here is what I remember; that it was in Jacksonville when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old (or maybe 10 or 11…my memory sucks! Dad still had his mustache and we were on the base, I think Cecil Field.  I know it was near an area we would go fishing and of course it was hot and humid outside like always.  I seem to remember that day though that it was a little overcast, in Jacksonville in the summers there would often be afternoon thunderstorms, which I loved. 

They were one of my favorite things about living in Florida because I thought that the dark grey sky looked really interesting and foreboding against the green of the trees.  But about the alligator…there was a rickety wooden dock that went out over the water.  A really low dock and it probably wasn’t safe at all but we are a family of adventure and sometimes danger. 

This is what’s left of the bridge. The pond is now gone.

The Aligator In The Story Is Real!

We were standing on the dock and we saw an alligator coming towards us,. He was heading in a route that would put him passing under the dock and popping out the other side.  Dad thought it would be cool to try and touch Mr. Alligator. So he laid down on the dock on his stomach and was poised to touch the back of the alligator as it swam under the dock. 

The alligator appeared on the other side of the deck, where Dad was ready to give him a pet.  And he did, he reached down and touched the alligator. All of us got a huge scare when the alligator turned back around and gave a little snap of his teeth!  It was probably just a warning of “hey what was that, I didn’t like that” but it made all of us kids scream bloody murder.

Oh and not to mention all the times that Dad faked us out. He made us think he was throwing us in the water to be alligator food.  He’d make sure he had a hand air-gripped around our wrist or arm, just loose enough where we couldn’t feel it, but then at the same time give a tiny shove from behind so we thought we were headed to be swamp snacks, only to feel the yank of security a split second later because Dad had ahold of us all along.  So that is my alligator story.