Is It Me?

Is it me? I mean, I finally nailed a job with Cape Fear Newspapers (www.capefearnewspapers.com) in late September. I'd been an unemployed writer/journalist for 16 months. I was joyous to have the new opportunity to show my stuff. And I had plenty to do as the only full-time reporter in Pender County, NC, for the Pender Chronicle.

Now, here's the thing. I started work Sept. 28, 2009. Pender County hadn't had a murder case all year. A day later ... No. 1. It was in Hampstead. It's still unsolved. A month later there was one in Willard. They arrested a guy for that. In between, a popular teenager died in a surfing accident. He frammed into a fishing pier. Then, Dec. 27, the body of a 23-year-old woman was found by the side of the road.

I'm getting too used to going to visitations to talk to family members. I know how to get the photo of the deceased and it's amazing how many people can still be found listed in the phone book.

This has always been the worst part of the job for me. I remember early on going to the sight of an ugly, bloody, deadly accident. People had gather to gape. But I had a camera out and was taking photos. "Look at that," one person said. "She's actually taking pictures."

That hurt.

I covered Theodore Bundy, and he knew my name. That was spooky.

In Lake City, FL, I was armed with my camera as I boarded a Sheriff's Dept. boat to retrieve a bloated, floating body in one of the lakes that gave the town its name. Halfway there we were ... let's just say we were feeling ill and showing it over the side of the boat. We went back to shore before reaching the body. I stayed there.

It is said I followed my journalist father's footsteps. But he cover unions and Adelai Stevenson's two runs for president. He covered congress and the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. It may have stunk, at times. But he didn't have to get rowed back to shore.

It's White BREAD

Why did I change the name from Cracker Politics to White Bread World? Because all my life I've been in search of ethnicity. People don't get whiter than I am. I am part French, German, a whole lotta British with some Swedish thrown in for fun. Tell me if I'm wrong. I should call Guinness.

Now, this is not about racism or, God forbid, being a white supremacist. It's about ethnicity, and my lack thereof. So I'm creating my own.

Welcome to White Bread World. My mother made casseroles. We had tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches made with Wonder Bread. I have three dozen meat loaf recipes.

Thank God my sister married an Italian. We needed the infusion. We had eggplant, breaded, with cheese and stuff on it. I have found I prefer Romano to Parmesan. I know people named Guido. Don't ask.

Yet I am White Bread and proud of it. Join me in my journey.

Came Just This Close

There was the time my sister, Liz, and her best friend, Chris visited me while I was working with the Lake City Reporter in Florida.

Chris wanted to see alligators.

Now, as a University of Florida Gator, (class of 1977) I’d seen plenty of them. I’d spent most of my three years at the college living at Hume Hall, which was at the far edge of the campus. It also had a nice swath of grassyness between it and a pond, which was more like a lake, but not big enough. It was a pondish lake.

And it was fed by a spillway from Lake Alice, an alligator preserve. So alligators would spill over as well into the pondish lake.

Now, those of us in Hume Hall knew not to swim in the pondish lake. We’d lie in the sun or play flag football on the grassy area between.

But then there were those two instances. A man had brought his mid-sized dog to use the grassy area and play Frizbee. It was a warm day, even for Florida. So the man apparently decided to cool off his dog by having him fetch the Frisbee from the pondish lake.

Games stopped. Those of us sunning stood and watched as there was a thrashing and churning in the water of the pondish lake. Thankfully, whatever happened happened under water. But neither the dog nor the Frisbee returned.

Not more than a few weeks later, another man, with a Labrador, was showing how his dog could catch a Frisbee. And then he turned to throw the disc into the pondish lake. Games stopped. Those of us sunning stood and we all screamed a universal “NO.”

It was too late.

So when Chris said she wanted to see alligators, I dismissed those sad alligator farms. She wants to see alligators? Dog eating alligators in the wild?

We went to Lake Alice.

Now, having seen what alligators can do, I stayed back by the car. Liz and Chris joined a couple with their young son on the tip of a spit of land that stuck out into Lake Alice. The little boy was armed with marshmallows and, tossing them in the water, was attracting quite a few gators.

I was tempted to tell them that these were not pigeons in the park, but dog eating carnivores.

And then this bull alligator slopped out of the lake. With the head the size of a Buick, he was crawling up behind them, blocking my sister’s and the others way back to safety.

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I discovered myself on the hood of the car, pounding on it, waving madly and shouting … instructions.

Chris turned and waved back.

It’s strange the stuff that goes through your mind at a time like this. I’m on the hood of a car. It’s not mine. “Holy crap! They’ve got the keys, and I’m not going after them.”

You see, alligators can run 30 miles an hour in spurts. He didn’t need to run, spurt or otherwise. He just needed to turn his head.

Which led to the next thought: “What am I going to tell Mom?”

Ring: “Mom? Yeah, Liz was eaten by a gator. No, a real alligator. Do you have Chris' mom's, uh, Unice’s phone number?”

Thankfully, marshmallow boy seemed to pick up on my signals and grabbed a handful of his marshmallows and tossed them into the water behind the living Buick, who slowly turned and slopped back in the water to get the floating treats.

The adults caught a clue, since by now I was on the hood of the car and making dents. And I never had to call Unice.

Adventures with Dad

We used to vacation two weeks a summer at Ocean City, MD. But even with the beach and the boardwalk, the miniature golf and Playland, the best part for me and Dad was going out on his 16-foot aluminum boat to fish Assawoman Bay. You heard me. Look it up.

Now, Assawoman Bay was, in many places, so shallow that, if you had trouble with your boat you could pretty much walk it back to the dock. Trust me. I know. And thus I always wore sneakers. There’s some icky stuff down there.

But on this particular day, Dad wanted to go down by the bridge, where the big boats play.

I, as a 12-year-old, was up for it because down that way, just the year before, we’d caught 142 blowfish. I say “we,” but Dad was mostly baiting my double drop hooks, then scooping them up in the net by fives. It was like they wanted to get in the boat. Later, bless his heart, he cleaned them all … barehanded.

Anyway, the closer we got to the bridge, the rougher the water was getting.

Dad’s wasn’t a Jon boat with the flat front. His had a pointed bow with a triangle of aluminum at the tip with a handle so you could lift it onto the top of your car to carry it home. And it came equipped with a 5 1/2 horsepower Johnson motor, which was about the size of a dorm room refrigerator.

With all that weight in the back, Dad had me sit way up in the fronty front to balance it out. It didn’t work, but it made him feel better.

On this day, I felt like doing the bucking bronco, what with the rough water and all. I’d sit on the triangle of aluminum, holding on to the handle with my legs dangling over the bow and ride her like a steed.

Only this time, one of those big boats happened by, creating quite the wake. That, combined with the already rough water, caused our mighty vessel to ride up and tip violently to port. So I rode up and tipped violently to port … and fell in the water. Tshirt, shorts and tennis shoes. And a hat! I forgot. I lost my hat!

When I reached the surface again, Dad had put the motor in neutral and was laughing his butt off. I grabbed hold of the side of our piece o’ crap craft and glared at him. I could see the thought forming in his brain.

“Deb. As long as you’re down there, why don’t you see how deep it is?”

“Dad!”

“C’mon. You can do it.”

Right. Play with my ego. So I pushed off, took a deep breath and dove, pulling myself down … and down … and down. This was creeping me out, so I turned back up and propelled myself to the surface as fast as my sneakers would allow.

I came up for air yet again and Dad was still laughing and almost clocked me with the boat.

I grabbed the side of our dinky dinghy again. “Dad, I couldn’t get to the bottom.”

“Wow. It must really be deep, then.”

OK. That formed a little pearl of pride in my chest. A little one. We still had to get little miss waterlogged back in the bloody boat.

It involved pain. You know those little round thingies you can put oars through? Yeah. Ouch.

We decided this trip was pretty much over and headed back to where we were staying. I slogged my way up the stairs and put my fishing gear down on the porch, stood, and saw Mother standing in the doorway.

“Howard! What on earth happened?”

Dad, who was standing beside me, beaming with pride because he had, after all, brought me home alive, was about to say something when I interrupted.

“Mom, we never really saw it, but it had to have been huge. Fortunately, we got the fishing pole back.”

I inched past her through the doorway and squished my way to the bathroom for a shower.