A snake story from the past...

This whole snake business reminded me of one of the worst vacations we ever had...and my poor Aunt Peggy had to pay the price of us not returning to her home for at least a couple of years I believe. I'll go ahead and tell the whole story, but begin with the snake portion.

It was a Wed night, already dark, as we pull into Kilgore, Texas to my Uncle Mike & Aunt Peggy's house. All the family was coming into town. I don't remember our exact age, but Shell & I were both in elementary...probably around 3rd & 5th grades or so. Anyway, we got there before everyone was home from church, so my dad left us in the car and went around back to find the spare key. I don't remember how long he was gone, but he came back and in the calm way he says everything, he says, "I think I got bit by a snake."

Of course now, Shell & I are freaking out in the backseat. My dad then takes our Miss Piggy sleeping bag out of her plastic cover along with a shovel and goes back to the backyard to kill it and confirm if it was a poisonous snake. After what seemed like absolutely forever and us still scared to death in the backseat, he comes back with a pretty good size snake. He's pretty sure it's poisonous at this point.

My mom proceeded to pull up his pant leg in the car and sure enough somewhere around the ankle area he had 2 fang marks. So my mom proceeds to "suck the blood" from the wound and spit it out. Keep in mind, this is the 80's long before they realized that people should NO longer do this. Also keep in mind, Shell and I are sitting in the backseat watching all of this

My dad throws the now dead snake into the Miss Piggy's plastic bag and off we drive to the hospital with the snake. They confirm it's a copperhead and my dad spends the night in the hospital.

Okay, yes this story is forever long...but if you want to realize what made this weekend so horrible is that was only our 1st trip to the hospital. The next day my sister took a turn there. We'd been riding their horse all morning and Shell was the last one and said she wanted to ride by herself...well by that time Little Mister Horsie was plain sick of a million of us cousins riding him, so he proceed to run out of control toward the pasture. We sister's immediate reaction was to grab onto a fence, that turned out to be a barbed wire fence...so yes, she had stiches in her hand and laid in bed all night with her arm up in the air...First thing come morning, we bolted early...we'd had enough...we went back home!

And if you ever want to see a VERY large rattlesnake skin & rattle next time at my parent's house, just ask dad to pull it out...it's from one he killed back in his marine days! Or, of course, you are welcome to come see the live baby rattler we caught that is still living in a bucket right now....Wes thought it was very cool!