Snake! (a five minite story)

When I was 10 years old, my grandparents on my mothers side lived in Madras, Ore. It was a

three hour drive so we always stayed at least two or three days, and it was common for one or

more of my aunts and uncles to schedule co-visits so we could all get together. There was about

12 of us cousins, and we played real well together, so these visits were something us kids looked

forward to.

Madras sits on the east side of Mt. Hood where the foot hills level out into the high desert of

eastern Ore., it's sagebrush country with a nice mix of juniper trees scattered across rolling

hills. My grandparents lived a few miles out of town and there was no limit to adventures we

could find. The was wild life all around and I loved to explore, this was as good as my life got at

this age.

My grandpa Jack was great, he was tall, thin, kind, had an incredible knowledge of the natural

world and was amazingly patient; when 12 kids between 2 and 15 descended on his home.

Grandpa's hobby was rock cutting and polishing; and the family had bought him the biggest, best
rock saw they could find for him when he retired. He would often load the older cousins (say 8

and older) up in his old Chevy pick-up and drive us out into the desert and take us rock

hounding. The desert around Madras was littered with agates, obsidian, jasper, chert, petrified

wood, and the occasional arrowhead (I once found a piece of agate that weighed 26 Lbs. that

grandpa cut into slices the size of dinner plates).

On one such trip, late in April or early may, the weather was warm and the oldest cousins got to

sit in the back of the pick-up, how fun is that, we all swapped stories and took turns teasing each

other. We had been traveling down a dirt road (no gravel) about 35 MPH for about 10-15

minites on the way to one of grandpa's favored spots when he suddenly swerved back and forth

and slammed on the brakes. We all went sliding and slammed into the bang-board behind the

cab. He jumped out of the cab with a worried look on his face (as he should have after bruising 7

of his grand kids at once) and hurried right passed us back up the road. We all were asking what

was wrong at the same time and grandpa shouted over his shoulder "I think I ran over a

snake!" (Grandpa loved all living things and especially reptiles). I was a 10 year old boy and I

positively loved reptiles. I would catch the same half dozen blue-bellied fence lizards that lived in

grandpa's rock wall, every time I visited. I scanned back up the road and there was the biggest

snake I had ever seen, stretched out across the road. If granddad hadn't run it over he had done

a pretty nifty job of straddling it. I jumped out of the back of that pick-up and caught up to and

passed grandpa, and had that snake in my hands before grandpa and the rest of the cousins

could get close. I turned around with a huge smile on my face and half out of breath, asked "is it

a rattlesnake grandpa?" For the first time in my life, I saw my grandpa angry. He leveled a look

at me that would stay with me for 40 years and in a voice that scared me with it's even timbre

said "you always ask that question, before you pick up the snake Richard." My cousins never get

tired of telling me about the look on my face as the implications settled in. The snake was a 5 ft.

long bull snake that had just shed it skin, it was glossy and beautiful. We all took turns holding it

and asking questions while grandpa told us everything he knew about bull snakes; which was

considerable. When he thought the snake had had all the attention it could stand he made us

walk it out into the sagebrush away from the road and let it go. I don't remember if we found

any agates.