A "Chance Alligator Encounter" of a "Beachy" Kind

A fine early morning, it was, on the 4th of August, as old LowCountry Joe embarked on his morning "power walk" on the pristine beaches of Daufuskie Island. As the sun broke  over Hilton Head's South Beach and reflected in the slow breaking waves, the high tide forced Joe closer than normal to Melrose's eight foot high wood piling seawall. It was there that he was to have "A Chance Alligator Encounter of a "Beachy" kind, a spiritual and physical awaking, if you will.

Now one might expect to have a "chance critter encounter" on a golf course as one seeks out an errant drive that tried to make it into a lagoon, but on the Atlantic beach as day breaks is another matter. But that's exactly what happened. As the white bearded/wide brim hatted figure quickly came around a point in the seawall, at a surprisingly fast pace for an old guy, there directly in front of him and blocking his path, was a fine upstanding South Carolina alligator with jaws wide open . As Joe tells it, it was at that time the spiritual and physical awaking happened. It seems that with his own jaw wide open he miraculously scaled that old seawall, "straight up" in "nothing flat" saying  something about "His Saviour" in the process.

Now if you happen to know Joe you would quickly understand he would not let this wall scaling experience pass him by. Word is he looked down at that fine gator from the confines and relative safety of his lofty perch and through bursts of gut wrenching laughter yelled "Nah Nah Nan Nah Nah" you can't get me now you piece of unmitigated shoe leather....at which time the gator ungratefully made some kind of a muted grunt and slithered off into the surf.

Now one must wonder if there is a moral to this story. Probably ain't. But it does go to show you that old guys bodies can sometimes do amazing things without any kind of enhancement or pills. That scaling high buildings in a single bound, or in this case, scale seawalls, is not out of the question and that in life sometimes you never know whats around the corner.

See ya on the high tide....