Chapter 6 ~ Things That Slither!

(part 2)

With all due respect to Hippocrates, I'd always thought that the only good snake was a dead one.  Carmon was more discerning.  In the wilderness, if Carmon saw the snake first, there was no contest.  Fortunately for him, he always saw the snake first.  If the snake were poisonous, he dispatched it without much ceremony, using whatever weapon he happened to have at hand: rock, slingshot, shotgun, rifle, or arrow.  He had no soft spot in his heart and he always took a trophy.  It was only after we were married that he showed me the quart-sized Mason jars full of rattlesnake rattles that bore mute testimony for his proclivity in these matters.  Had I seen them before the marriage, I might have run the other direction. 

If the snake were not poisonous, however, it was a different scenario entirely.  Usually, Carmon just left the poor little critters alone.  If the specimen was small enough, he might even help one of the children catch it, put it in a Mason jar, and observe it for a few days before letting it go again.  My children, for good or ill, learned a lot about biology in ways that had nothing to do with high school textbooks. 

On one such occasion, he had what he thought was an outstanding idea.  Looking back on it, it was a pretty environmentally sound solution to a big problem.  We were living on our mini-farm and had been having a terrible time with gophers in the alfalfa.  Their little dirt hillocks were everywhere—in the fields, in the vegetable garden, even in the lawn.  Carmon hated to use the strychnine-laced oat baits because strychnine poisoning is an especially cruel way to die, even for a gopher.  There was also the chance that the stock would get into the bait, or that a dog would eat a dead gopher and ingest the bait second-hand.  It was a war, and we were losing it because we were unarmed.  That’s when Carmon came up with the snake solution.

The inspiration for the snake solution appeared in the form of the snake itself.  It was lying flat across the warmth of a dirt road as Carmon was driving home from a fishing trip.  It looked huge – a five-foot gopher snake stretched out taking in the sun.  Gopher snake!  An answer to prayer!  In the proverbial flash, he was out of the truck and, dumping a pillow out of its case as he ran, was hot on the trail of that snake.  It was a race, then a struggle, but the snake ended up in the pillowcase and, ultimately, in our backyard.

He was more proud of that snake than of any of the fish he’d caught.  Leaving the fish in my care, he took a shovel from the shed, and then walked into the field, shovel in one hand and snake sack in the other.  He laid the pillowcase on the ground, making sure the top was tied securely closed, and began to dig out the top of the nearest gopher hole.  As soon as a clear tunnel was exposed, he opened the sack and gently started the snake down the gopher’s hole.  That snake hadn’t grown so large and so old by being stupid.  It didn’t need much encouragement before it slipped into the hole and disappeared.  Carmon put the shovel back in the shed, came in the house smiling like it was Christmas, washed his hands, and asked when dinner would be ready.  I couldn’t believe he had done all that work to drag a snake home, only to turn it loose again.  I just shook my head and started frying the fish.  That, I thought, was that. 

It was nearly two weeks later when we saw the snake again.  One of the boys saw him curled up at the base of the haystack.  I wondered aloud why he hadn’t slithered off, then caught myself and realized again that this was not a stupid reptile.  Carmon picked the snake up and, taking the shovel, found another gopher hole.  He dug it out, started the snake into the tunnel, then left.  This procedure was to be repeated many times.  Every week or so, whenever the snake got hungry, he would reappear at the base of the haystack, apparently waiting to be delivered to his next gopher smorgasbord.  If I hadn’t seen it myself, I would never have believed it possible.  Carmon took it in his stride, never even thinking about the incredible nature of the entire situation.

I think I mentioned earlier that I don’t like snakes. In truth, I was terrified of them.  Needless to say, while I watched this little symbiotic exchange between man and snake, I always did so from a healthy distance.  One day I made the mistake of allowing that distance to become distinctly unhealthy!

 

I was hanging wash on the clothesline next to the fence, which separated the lawn from the pasture.  Carmon was digging out a gopher hole near the fence and the snake had somehow wrapped itself around his free arm. (He had long since ceased to put the snake in a sack while he dug.  They were too good of buddies by then for that!)  He realized that he really couldn’t dig out the gopher hole one-handed and asked if I would help him.  I – naïve and trusting soul that I am – thought he wanted me to take the shovel and dig out the hole.  I cannot describe what I felt when he handed me the snake instead.  I just stood there, mouth agape, while the snake lay placidly in my outstretch hands, head hanging a foot over my left hand, tail hanging a foot over my right, with considerable sag in the middle.  Later, when I trained as a counselor, I learned about systematic desensitization therapy wherein the therapist helps the phobic patient overcome his phobia by gradually immersing him in the very thing that terrifies him.  As a counselor, I’ve never prescribed it, but as a former phobic, I can testify that it works.  I have never learned to like snakes, and I still avoid the ones that buzz and rattle, but after than moment, I was never terrified of a snake again.

© Gebara Education, 2001. No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author

Picture of Hippocratic symbol from www.sodahead.com
Picture of snake man holding snake in bag from www.billyjackrights.com
Picture of man holding snake from www.thereptilist.com