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Mom, tomato broker, camper. You don't want my shoes!Mar 03 '07 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line An entry to Kristinafh's 'About Me 2007' write-off. I don't hunt gator anymore.
My cell phone is ringing. The dog starts howling under my desk. He hates my new cell phone and I don't know how to cure him. I toss his noisy self into the backyard, and race back to catch the phone. "This is Beve, can I help you?" A growling voice "You said they would be pink,they are red!" I hear footsteps coming down the stairs, my son is singing at the top of his lungs, the sound is coming closer. "Can you hold a moment, please?" I put my customer on hold and shout to my son, "SHHHHHH, I'm on a client call!" He immediately stops singing, slouching in to the room and taking up his normal spot in front of his laptop at an old dining room table we have hauled downstairs for his home-school use. I resume my phone conversation "What do you mean they are red?! I shipped them at 58 degrees, they can't possibly be red." My client continues "The extra large are red, the mediums are dead green and you sent me 86 extra boxes of roma tomatoes, and 286 extra cartons of grape tomatoes, I only ordered 600. I'm going to need some help on these." Ahhh, it's so much fun being a tomato broker. I apologize to my customer and promise to get him some help. Which means a price break of course. I hang up with him and call the grower. "Hey! Why did you send my customer the wrong amount of roma and grape tomatoes?! He can't possibly use that many, he has nowhere to send them. We're going to need some help." "What do you mean we won't get any help, they are in heavier demand? That doesn't help my customer, he doesn't have an outlet for that many...." "No, this is not a market decay issue, you sent him too many..." I'm interrupted by a shout from the adjoining room, "MOM! I don't understand this! I'm trying to use the FOIL method for these polynomials but I DON'T GET IT! Help me please!" My mind races between polynomials and grape tomatoes. My customer is facing a loss of about 8k, my son is facing a crisis in Algebra. "I'll call you back." I say to the grower. I hang up the phone, say a quick prayer that I can figure out how to use the foil method on polynomials and head into the other room to help my son. My mind swims, but finally focuses and I confidently show him how to start from the first to the outside, etc. It's Friday. Thank you Lord. I'm about to wave goodbye to the city for an entire weekend. I'll soon exchange my daily life for thick swampy woods, large pastures inhabited by cows and deer, and a lazy tannin-stained river that winds through it. I'll swap my all-business role and become a 4-wheelin wild girl. I'll swap my Mommy role for mentor role, "Treat the gun as if it is ALWAYS loaded even if you know it isn't. It isn't a matter of IF you have an accidental discharge, it's a matter of WHEN." We feverishly throw what we'll need for a weekend into the van and take off for our beloved ranch, 1.5 hours from home. Out there we have no sirens, horns, traffic, asphalt, pressure. We arrive and unlock the front wooden gates. The cows head for us, hoping for a treat of sweet-feed. We can't disappoint them. We stop to pour a 50 lb. bag of feed in the trough. Then we wind our way down a narrow trail for a a little over a mile before our eyes land on our now fading-pink tent, our 20x30 tarp which shelters us from sun and rain, tables, chairs, hand-hewed camp benches and comfy folding chairs. I feel like I'm home. More than I do at home. A huge live oak limb snakes toward the center of our camp, as if greeting us with a handshake. A smile lights my face. It is exactly as we left it. We hop out of the van and set to work setting up camp. It takes us about 20 minutes and everything is perfect, down to our comfy beds. Within minutes we have a roaring fire, the lantern is lit and we set about searching for our ATV keys. Within minutes everybody has their keys and we grab a couple of Q-beams and head out of the woods into the clearing to see what critters we can find. Within minutes we have seen six deer, 14 wild turkeys, two hogs, seven coons, and a sleeping whip-o-will. With happy smiles on our faces we return to camp, settle into our favorite chairs around the fire, and swap stories of what we saw. Our stomachs are growling so we all set about making dinner. Everybody pitches in and soon we have campfire-grilled steaks, stewed potatoes, fresh sliced tomatoes (of course), and green beans. We eat by the fire and admire the huge orange harvest moon. After our bellies settle down, we head a hundred yards down the trail to the river. The Peace River is exactly that at this time of night. It is dark, mysterious, and quiet. The dark waters are barely distinguishable from the night. We pull our small john-boat from the nearby weeds and slide it quietly into the river. We slip aboard and hold our breaths as Dad cranks the small outboard motor. It roars to life and we head upriver to see who can spot the biggest alligator. Our Q-beams come to life as we sweep back and forth across the banks. Orange eyes glow back at us every hundred yards or so and we estimate the size of these prehistoric creatures by the distance between the eyes. For every inch between the eyes, we know there is one foot of alligator. So far we've only seen little guys, nothing over four feet. There are a lot of frogs out tonight though. Their eyes are green instead of orange. We didn't bring a gig, or we'd be eating fried frog legs for dinner tomorrow night. We give up and head back toward camp, still sweeping our Q-beams. A sudden screech from our 14 year old brings the motor to a crawl and we try to catch our breath as two huge orange orbs glow at us from the bank of our own beach. Judging by his eyes, he is 10-12 feet in length. Wow! A granddaddy gator. We creep up on him slowly, until we are within three feet of him, when with a huge splash he heads for the safety of the river. I am reminded of another very dark night many years ago. My little brother and I were out fishing for red snapper. I was driving the boat when he spotted a huge gator. He took a shot at it with a .22 magnum and struck it perfectly. It immediately sunk itself below the waters, and my brother hollered at me "Hold my feet, sis!" I thrust the boat into neutral and grabbed his pale feet as he headed over the side of the boat. Seconds later the water exploded as the gator thrashed and tried to dislodge my brother who had him behind the arms. I screamed "I can't hold on!" He said nothing as he was dragged back under the water by the huge alligator. His feet were twisting in my arms and it took all my strength to hold onto him. Another huge spray of water soaked me to the skin. The gator thrashed again on the surface right next to the boat trying to dislodge my brother who has more brawn than brains. Within moments, the gator was spent and we worked inch by inch to haul him into the boat. He was bigger than the two of us put together and I don't know how we got him into the boat, but we did. We made our way quickly back to camp and spent the rest of the night skinning, and preparing the wonderful creature for dinner the next night. The tasty white meat went into the cooler until it was completely filled, not with red-snapper as we had imagined, but with fresh, tender gator tail. I was still shaky, realizing it was my fragile arms that kept my crazy brother from being dragged to the dark depths of the river by that alligator. I am snapped back to the present as the bow slides noisily up on the bank. I resist the urge to share my memory of the gator hunt with my son, lest he should decide he wants to be like his Uncle "T". We anchor the boat, brush our teeth, swap hugs, and then settle in for a perfect night of sleep with the knowledge that tomorrow morning we will awake to campfire coffee, beautiful sunshine, and another perfect day in the woods. Is there any other kind? The day dawns early in the woods. The tent heats up like a sauna until we have no choice but to escape the heat. We crawl from the tent and quietly seek a cup of coffee, a book, and a few quiet moments waking up before the day begins in earnest. I grab a huge cup of coffee, fire up a 4-wheeler and race down to our fine white sugar-sand beach. I prop my coffee nearby and ease into the cold river waters, searching for fossils. I am rewarded with a gorgeous camel-tooth within my first 10 minutes of searching. The next half hour yields a 3 inch length of saber tiger tooth, a 3-inch chunk of mastodon tooth, and a small fossilized antler as well as numerous shark teeth. I tuck my treasures into a pack on the ATV and race back to camp to show off my new finds. Ahh, it's Saturday. I Love Saturdays...  |
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