(part 3)
Snake
stories don’t end with Carmon. I doubt
that snake attitude is an hereditary trait* according to Mendel’s
laws of genetics, but it might as well have been as things turned out. One of our children really disliked snakes. When our second son, Sess, was three, he was
afraid to sleep in the camper because he was so worried that a snake would
“open the door wif him tail and go ‘Nake, Nake, Nake, ‘ and bite me!” Two of our children were indifferent to
them. One – the youngest – took after
his dad. Tunk began catching snakes –
and other things that slither – almost as soon as he could walk. There was always a jar of something around
the house – bugs, lizards, toads, frogs, crawdads from the canal, or
snakes.
One day,
when Tunk was about four, he came running into the room where I was sewing,
absolutely hysterical and saying something about snake knots. I followed him into the room where he had
just that morning had set two big glass jars – the kind people often use to
make sun tea – with his latest zoological specimens. In one was a 6 inch king snake, and in the
other, a 6 inch red racer. My heart
dropped when I saw only one jar on the shelf.
Even I knew that king snakes are cannibalistic! Without waiting to ask any questions, I
reached in the jar and pulled out the snake knot. Tunk had been correct, if somewhat graphic,
in his description. That is exactly what
it looked like, with the snakes twisting and coiling around one another in a
writhing, agonizing knot of reptile fear and fury.
I began by
untangling their tail ends (which was all that was left of the red racer
anyway) then began gently to pull. I
knew that the racer was still alive because he was fighting so valiantly. I didn’t want to hurt the king snake, but I
couldn’t sit by and watch the red racer disappear down its neighbor’s gullet
either, especially in front of my four-year-old son. I kept pulling gently and slowly as more and
more of the red racer’s body came into sight.
Finally, with a little pop the snakes were separate. The king snake was still writhing in my left
hand, stretching out toward his lunch, which was writhing equally as much in my
right hand, trying to slither up my wrist and out of harms way. I dropped the king snake back into the jar
and gave the red racer to Tunk. I
plopped into a chair as Tunk went in search of the brother who had stolen his
other glass jar. It must be
hereditary!
~ ~ ~
Tunk’s
love affair with reptiles didn’t end there.
When he was five, he found a much bigger king snake – about a
four-footer. This time his dad was the
one who told him he couldn’t keep it, but could hold it and observe it for the
day. Shane was delighted. Unfortunately, little boys sometimes have to stop their play to use the bathroom. Since he was soon to begin kindergarten, I had been trying to impress upon him the fact that he was too grown up to play sprinklers on the lawn with his friend Turt, and that he needed to come into the house and use the proper facility. As usual, Tunk was an obedient child. He remembered what he’d been told and dutifully came into the bathroom – my bathroom. As he had done so often with his toys, Tunk laid the king snake on his dad’s and my bed while he was taking care of business.
I was in the kitchen making bread when Tunk came out of my room. “Mom, where’s my new snake? I putted him on your bed while I went to the bathroom, but he didn’t sit still like I told him to. Now I can’t find him!”
Needless to say, for months after that, I didn’t get up in the night for so much as a drink of water without putting on my shoes and my glasses and turning on every light in the house!
By the way, I never did find that snake. I just sold the house!
© Gebara Education, 2001.No portion of this book may be copied by any method without the express written permission of the author
* Looking at my grandson, Big C, I am beginning to rethink this statement!
Picture of gopher snake from www.gotpetsonline.com
Picture of snakes fighting from www.fieldandstream.com
Picture of large king snake from www.thereptilist.com
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