SOME SNAKE TALES

There are a lot of exaggerated stories concerning Texas, among them are stories about snakes. the ones I'm going to share with you are not exaggerated but are true. As mentioned before, I grew up in the country so we had snakes around the property; little rat snakes, coral snakes, copperheads, kingsnakes, cottonmouths and of course, the diamondback rattlesnake. It is the latter that I write about.

My grandmother lived with us and she knew all about snakes, among other things.  She kept a garden hoe propped up by the screen door on our back porch. That hoe came in handy when a rattlesnake slithered up on the back steps to cool off on the concrete. My grandmother, totally unafraid, picked up the hoe, opened the screen door and chopped off the rattler's head before he even had a chance to rattle. She then knocked its body off the steps and waited for Daddy to remove it when he got home.

My cocker spaniel dog whose name was Pal got bitten on the stomach by a rattler and stayed in our garage for several days fighting off the venom. He lived though, but when my grandmother died he went back into the garage and mourned himself to death.

One greedy rattler got stuck in the chicken wire fence after stealing an egg from our hen house. He didn't make it through.

One of my favorite snake stories is about when my mother, my city bred-husband and I went dove hunting on a ranch in Beeville. We weren't having any luck finding birds in one field so we decided to go to the next one which was fenced with barb wire. My husband started to climb through the fence first and as I watched from some distance, I saw him motioning frantically for me when he was straddling the wire and pointing to the ground in front of him. There right in front of him between his legs coiled up ready to strike was a huge rattlesnake! I took aim with my shotgun and blasted away, making sure that was all I hit. Otherwise we probably would not have had our children! 

(Sorry about the photo. Best I could do)

The rattlesnakes killed around Beeville didn't always get thrown away. Sometimes they were cooked and made into a paste. (tastes like chicken) Spread on saltines, that was one of the dishes my mother served at a party we gave for my college roommate from Baltimore. My roommate was chowing down on the crackers and proclaiming how delicious they were when she asked what was on them. Mother replied "Oh that's just rattlesnake paste. It's a little South Texas specialty."  Poor girl, she ran from the room, spitting it out and spent a good half hour making sure she had no traces of it in her mouth!

I close my writings now with a little limerick I composed some time back. It's from a true happening.

There once was a cowboy named Bill

who rode a horse up a hill.

Horse stepped on a snake,

Saddle had no brake.

That's why they call him "One Ball Bill"