Wednesday, June 27, 2012

An Incident With a Black Snake

When I was in my early to middle teens I nearly always ran wherever I was going.  When I was going to my friend (and cousin) David's house it was closer and quicker to go down the creek, through the old fence, around the hill side and hit the old county road and run as long as I could on it, then go through the fence and around the hill, then across the bottom to his house.

One day en route to his house I was running along the old road and just before I got to the fence across the road where his Dad kept their cattle I stepped across a large (4-5 ft long) blacksnake.  I stopped several steps farther along and turned to look back at the snake.  I expected it to just crawl off.  This one had other things in mind though.

You've seen movies or even photographs of a Cobra standing up on it's tail?  That is what that black snake did.  It raised up so only a foot or so was left on the ground and the other three to four feet of it was standing straight up and the head turned to look at me.

I was looking around for a rock or a strong branch but the section of road where both the snake and I were was over grown with honeysuckle vines.  So we just stood there looking at each other, neither of us moving for what seemed ages.

Then the snake dove over the bank and disappeared.  It did not drop to the ground at all but dove in the air over the bank.  I'll swear the whole thing was in the air for a while.  Afterwards I ran on down to Dan's house but I'll never forget the way it was just standing there watching that snake look back at me for so long.

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