My dad was hanging upside down under the bridge and had a choice. 

He could (A) let go of the valuable snakes in his hands or (B) fall on top of the 14-foot alligator waiting in the water below. 

The whole incident began earlier that day when I decided to go "snake collecting" with my dad. My dad is a reptile dealer and has spent much of his life around the Everglades, catching thousands of snakes and selling them to pet shops. 

My dad now owns his own pet shop in West Palm Beach and does not make trips to go snake collecting any more. But the hundreds of trips I took with him still are fresh in my mind and certainly made my childhood an exciting time. 

On one particular morning, my dad and I left for an area he called Alligator Alley. The area was named after the fact that in all my dad's years of catching reptiles, he had never seen alligators as large as the ones in this area. 

When we left the house around 6 a.m. that day, I couldn't wait to get there. Our trip there led us down roads that got smaller and smaller, and then, suddenly, we appeared on top of a 5-story water dike. 

At the bottom of one side of the dike was a deep, menacing canal as wide as I-75. And on its shores, from time to time, were gators -- giant gators longer than our car. I always had a fear that my dad would hit a pothole on the trail on top of the dike and our little Volkswagen Bug would tumble down the hill into the dark waters. 

Catching snakes out there was quite easy. We'd stop at the bridges crossing the canal and would look under them. You see, snakes traveling along the canal would hit the warm bridges and crawl out under them, soaking up the heat on those cold mornings. 

To get to the snakes, my dad would crawl out upside down, wrapping his arms and legs around a pole that ran parallel to the water under the bridge. When he got out to the middle, he'd grab the snakes sitting on the ledge, then drop into the water and swim back. 

But when he went to drop into the water on the last bridge, a 14-foot gator surfaced underneath him. If my dad dropped, he'd land on the gator and likely be attacked. He couldn't crawl back because he was too tired, and he was having trouble just holding on. 

So I waded out partway, screaming and slapping the water, hoping the gator would head my way on the other side of the canal. But the gator didn't budge. My dad, meanwhile, was losing strength and had to let go of the yellow rat snakes. The snakes landed on the gator's head, but the gator didn't move, and I caught the snakes as they swam to shore. 

For a seeming eternity, my dad hung upside down. The gator waited. 

Then, as suddenly as gator appeared, it left and re-appeared on the other side of the canal. That's when I yelled. 

"Dad! Drop and swim! Drop and swim!" 

He did and made it to the shore, exhausted. And as he sat on the shore, catching his breath, he looked up at me and asked a question that still haunts me: 

"How do you know the gator that surfaced over there was the same one that was under me?"