Another Snake Tale

[JohnF]

Way back when I had still had hair, at about age 10, I lived on the banks of a river. Since we'd grown up with the river right there it was of course our playground, stress on the our. My Mom still laughs at how she could have let us disappear up the river for a day at a time and never worry about us getting hurt, but she said the water was so much a part of our lives that worrying about it would have been like worrying about streets or playgrounds. I remember her saying once that she figured that at least if we fell in the water the landing was softer than on the ground. And she was right. We survived.

 

Now at that time the conservation lakes were just starting to be created. Wildwood was far off in the future, Stratford didn't allow motor boats, and I'm not even sure if Fanshawe existed yet, so power boaters needed a place to play and our town was it.

 

On a nice Saturday or Sunday there'd be at least half a dozen and often more boats dropped in for some weekend cruising down the creek past the dam and then way up the big river into the farmlands. Where I lived and played there were stone and concrete walls containing the muddy creek and these walls made for quite a maelstrom of wave action when all these boats started puttering up and down. Us kids figgered this was the best time to get our our little rafts and homemade boats out to play in the crazy water. We could all swim like fish and had no fear of the water at all.

 

But not all the boaters felt quite so secure about us kids messing about in their wakes so on occasion tried to get us to stay off the water when they were busy being grownup power boaters. This is the story of one particularly obnoxious jerk who was really really insistent that we not hang around while he played.

 

Like I said, he must have been particularly offensive about it all, or perhaps we were just feeling particularly possessive of our little stretch of river that day, because this guy really got to us. This was our river, dammit, and nobody told us when we could play on it. But he was pretty insistent so we took the raft and the little boats back to our dock and tied up, all the while expressing our indignation at being tossed out of our own backyard. I can't remember who came up with the idea first but it was a dandy so we jumped on our bikes and pedalled as fast as we could to a nearby area where we knew there were scads of garter and grass snakes. It took us only a few minutes to gather up a couple of grocery bags full of the wee beasties. Have you got the picture yet?

 

This was in the days of paper grocery bags, right? So picture two large brown paper bags each containing about a dozen squirming writhing pee-ohed snakes. Those bags were a thing of beauty, at least to a gang of 10 year olds.

 

So we peddled our nasty little arses right back to my house, scooted out onto the bridge and put our strategy into execution.

 

I was the bombardier. That meant I was on the downstream side of the bridge with the snake bombs. One of my buddies was the targeter. He went to the other side of the bridge and marked exactly where & when the target (the mouthy guy in the boat) came under the bridge toward me. We had picked this spot for our ambush because it was where the boats came back up the Creek, turned and slowly approached the cement wall to tie up or get another load of passengers.

 

Our plan worked like a charm. I waited with my head stuck thru the pillars of the bridge, a snake bomb in each hand, and as soon as the bow of the target appeared below I released the bombs. They fell true, smacking on the floor of the boat just in front of the middle seat. The paper ripped open and the snakes erupted like a brown flood, flowing in every direction in the boat. It was beautiful to behold. I admit to a little twinge of guilt when I realized that the mouthy guy's passengers for this trip were a couple of women. Now, most folks are a little hinky around snakes. Hinky doesn't begin to describe these two women. They flat out freaked. They were dancing around, screaming and hollering, waving their arms like that would chase the snakes away. The snakes were just as freaked as them though and were all of one mind, to get out of the boat and back to shore. The guy was a hoot, alternately screaming up at us (laughing on the bridge) and trying to calm the women who seemed determined to capsize his boat. Neither effort did him much good, although the boat never tipped.

 

But then we realized he was drawing close to shore and was still more than a tad peeved so we hit the road. We were smart enough not to run to my house right there beside us. We instead took off to the other side of the creek and cut through a few backyards and shortcuts we knew about. The guy never stood a chance. He was outnumbered and outwitted and we had right on our side.

 

The guy and his boat were gone when we finally slunk back home and we heard no more about the event so I assume he hadn't connected me with the attack. Good thing cuz my dad would have skinned me, and then probably got tons of mileage out of bragging to his buddies about it.

 

I suppose I should be ashamed of what we did, but the guy was such a major jerk that it just felt really good, and still does. I felt a little bad for the snakes and the women, but not the guy.

 

And that's my snake story.

 

JF

[ADB]

Hilarious

[The JAY]

That, sir, is a priceless story! Thanks for sharing!

[BITEME]

That made my Day

 

Thanks

Peter

[Fang]

I will not let my 11 yr old son read this!

[torco]

Great story.

[Ron]

i like it!