- Joined
- May 1, 2004
- Messages
- 2,290
I came home from a horrible day at work, to find my five-gallon dog food-transporting bucket sitting under the carport today with a sheet of plywood and a cinder block sitting on top. I've come to learn that this usually means SOMEBODY has put some critter inside and figured that the guy who does paint and body work on my classic cars had caught either a snake, or another turtle, and left it for me. Before I could remove the cinder block, though, my neighbor, an elderly Black man who has lived around here for most of his life, came out of his house to warn me not to let the snake get loose when I lifted the plywood...well at least now I knew it was a snake, but not what KIND of snake I'd find inside the bucket. I was really surprised at WHO had caught the snake, though-my neighbor! He's an old guy, completely illiterate, having never set foot in a school room, which was typical for Blacks growing up in the pre-Civil Rights era South, and he's really afraid of snakes, having always been "taught" that snakes are evil, vicious and dangerous creatures. To give him credit, though, he's very curious about them, and fascinated by my lack of fear of snakes, and he respects them, if for no other reason than he is literally afraid of my late grandfather, who forbid the killing of any non-venomous snake on his property, coming back from the grave to exact revenge on anyone who kills a snake on what used to be his farm! My neighbor had spotted the snake lying stretched out on the ground in the front yard when he went to the mailbox, and instead of panicking or killing the snake, he remembered my snake hooks under the garage and went and fetched the longest one, and used it to pick up the snake, then transported it to the bucket. He had no idea what kind of snake it was, other than he knew it wasn't a Black Rat Snake, which he was familiar with and can recognize, so I didn't know if I'd be facing a venomous snake, or a harmless one, when I removed the plywood. As it turned out, THIS is what was inside, picture taken after I'd placed the captive in a proper snake enclosure:
This girl(yes, it's a female)is one of the nicest examples of a SC Coastal Plains Corn I've ever seen. She's got a little bit of an attitude, but she'll calm down. I'm really proud of my neighbor, though, for conquering his fear and actually catching a live snake, unharmed, something he never imagined he'd ever do! It really serves to illustrate that it's never too late for a person to learn new things, or change old attitudes, and that one's education level has little to do with one's ability to learn.
pitbulllady
This girl(yes, it's a female)is one of the nicest examples of a SC Coastal Plains Corn I've ever seen. She's got a little bit of an attitude, but she'll calm down. I'm really proud of my neighbor, though, for conquering his fear and actually catching a live snake, unharmed, something he never imagined he'd ever do! It really serves to illustrate that it's never too late for a person to learn new things, or change old attitudes, and that one's education level has little to do with one's ability to learn.
pitbulllady
