Can’t understand anyone wanting to play with snakes

Writer’s Roost


 

 

My upbringing involved all the morals and accompanying rules that guided my mother. It also included all her fears and phobias. One of the latter was her sheer terror with the mention of the word, “snake.” And, four mischievous sons soon learned that a mere hissing sound — ssssssss — would bring shudders from Mom and delighted giggles from the demonic quartet.

Even though Boy Scouting required a quantity of respect for the slithering serpents, it also fostered an “I ain’t skeered uh nuthin’” mantra that came with earning the Snakes Merit Badge. Talk about your false bravado.

Only the ain’t-afeareduh nothin’ morons of that age group would show no fear of a snake.

While the Scout training wisely included being able to tell the difference between a poisonous viper and a “harmless” snake, who wanted to get close enough to tell? As they were striking, who knew if the head was triangular (poisonous) versus the more rectangular shape of the “harmless” serpent? (After all, weren’t those the critters referred to in Genesis and the Garden of Eden?) And, although not all snakes are venomous, all snakes bite. That is good enough for me.

But, good Scout that I was, I “scouted on” to earn the merit badge. Several of us formed a collective to accomplish the award and, at the same time, create a “snake exhibit” for public view…meaning younger ‘fraidy-cat kids that we could scare witless.

Through that good ol’ Boy Scout Handbook, we learned to build containers to protect one and all from the vile vipers. These included getting wooden boxes (about 4-5” deep) from grocery stores, tacking screen wire over the top, leaving just enough of an opening on one corner to be able to place the snake in the box, then tack down the wire. One had to be mindful of where his hands were in that process so they weren’t where the demons could strike — fangs can go through screen wire into a stray hand.

I didn’t mention this particular badge to Mother, but rather got in a little fright with the display of the cloth emblem she had to sew on my merit badge sash. She almost made a mess of it as she shrieked her disdain for such dangerous exploits by boys.

As for catching snakes in the first place, we learned to use broom or hoe handles. First, drill a hole from the side angled toward the end of the handle. Then, run a strong picture frame wire through the hole to the end of the handle securing it to the surface with a small nail. Finally, loop the wire and tack it down to complete the trap.

Usually a team of three Scouts — one equipped with a forked pole, two armed with a homemade snake-catcher — penned the reptile with the forked pole. Then they looped a “catcher” over the snake’s head, another secured his tail. The loop was placed just far enough over the snake’s head to eliminate its striking capability and the “tail” noose limited its slithering capacity.

On one outing, I and three other Explorer Scouts corralled a huge water moccasin.

One of the Scouts had a 1938 Chevrolet 4-door sedan. The front wheel wells were fenders with headlights atop them. Two of us sat on those fenders, thighs clamped onto the headlights, and held the snake as near arm’s length in front of us as possible. That moccasin’s belly almost dragged the ground and it was extremely heavy, at least to a pair of skinny14-year-old Explorers.

We drove almost two miles that way, creeping along, to the Scoutmaster’s house where the exhibit boxes were kept.

Our “snake show” was a big hit with the community (the early 1950s were that way).

Mother almost didn’t recover and, I believe, took extra doses of her nerve medicine for a couple of weeks until we turned the snakes back into the wilds, a forested area with a sizable creek running through it at the north edge of town.

To be honest, I was a little relieved, too.

Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper publisher of more than 50 years experience. He can be reached by email at wwebb1937@att.net.

WILLIS WEBB is a retired community newspaper publisher of more than 55 years experience. He can be reached by email at wwebb1937@att.net.


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