Sure we’ve done stories where the scenery is naturally breathtaking. Mike has written scripts that capture the essence of the people he meets. Even with these ingredients, while some stories we have done are enjoyable to watch and hold people’s attention, when they’re done, they’re forgotten.

That’s not necessarily a knock on either Mike or me. Sometimes things aren’t as magical as they were pitched to us. Other times it’s right on the money and the stories work, but that’s as far as it goes. But then every so often the Carolina Traveler crew gets caught off guard and we capture some truly special moments to share.

Well that time came on a trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC. We left Charlotte at 5:00 a.m. to make it for a 10:00 a.m. deadline. It’s a story at the beach on a surfing camp for Autistic children called “Surfers Healing”. Just hearing about it from a viewer’s e-mail, Mike and I knew this would be a winner.

It was a day where over 100 special needs children could simply be kids. No staring from strangers on this day. No asking what’s wrong with that kid. A child might have a tantrum because their autism acted up. So what, it didn’t matter today.

Mike and I were ready for a day of smiles and kids being kids, some magic moments. The key in capturing all these moments is the beauty of the wireless microphone. It allows us to eavesdrop on real life. No, I don’t mean like the “Reality Television” that bombards living rooms every night. This is true reality. Nobody gets voted off the island or is competing to be a millionaire while “getting real”.

These are moments when someone is generous enough to wear one of these devices and we back away. At some point, they become so engrossed in their surroundings, they forget we’re watching them. It’s actual life in their surroundings. Add one final ingredient to the Autistic surf camp and bingo, surf’s up! We’ve got a winner.

That ingredient is called surprise. No, not for the people wearing the microphone, but for Mike and Andy (did I just refer to myself in the third person? I swear I’m not that pompous). Today the surprise was not that the kids were smiling or that there were plenty of smiles to go around. Today we got to see the true love a parent has for their child.

Sure all parents love their children. I don’t have any children, but I have friends whose entire lives are their kids. I see their bond and the love in their eyes. My surprise was that the love of these special needs parents was something I wasn’t prepared for. It’s a love at any cost, no matter what your child does or looks like to the outside world. An unselfish quality that manifests itself to a parent and probably the most difficult part of their life.

We captured two of these incredible family moments this day. Another surprise was that they were actually at opposite of the spectrum, joy and fear.

One mom got to see her non-verbal son be a “regular kid”, just for a few hours. No, he couldn’t say it, but she could see it in his eyes. It wasn’t the child’s joy that made the moment. It was the tears in the mother’s eye that made my own eyes well up. Even though I thought we would capture moments like this, the payoff of seeing this joy was even greater than I had imagined it.

The other moment caught the Traveler team off guard. We found a mom who was scared to death of her four-year-old boy surfing. Forget the fact he was in safe hands of professional surfers or that the father was right next to her with the home video camera. It was a terrifying moment for this mom. And somehow Mike was able to get her to wear a microphone so we are able to share this with you. We shared about ten minutes of true fear with this woman.

After the boy’s ride in the ocean was over, his mother was so panicked she began to run out in the ocean to get him. The only problem with the heart-wrenching moment I was capturing was the fact she had our $2,000 microphone was about to go into the salt water with her.

Thank God for your favorite Carolina Traveler Mike Redding. After hearing my screams of “Mike! Get her!” he bounded into the ocean and stopped what would have likely been a few days off without pay for me. But remembering the moment in hand, the camera never stopped rolling so we have it all to share with you on the new Traveler shows airing in November in HD.

Mike is the writer of the show, not me. So I know I didn’t do these moments justice in this column. But please, trust me, I’m pretty good with the camera and they do pay off when you get to see them. We try to do our best with every story. But sometimes, we get lucky and the stars align and the story-telling gods are on our side. They were out on this day in Wrightsville Beach.

This is one of the stories I’ll look back and always remember. I shot some nice pictures, Mike wrote his heart out and we have some great sound bites/quotes from the parents. But the natural moments make this one stand out tall and proud as the parents of those Autistic children. And even better than this great story, for my bosses, I can say these moments were all captured my still functioned, dry as a bone wireless microphone.

See you Saturdays at 7:30 pm.

Andy Benton
Carolina Traveler Sidekick