A Snake Tale

I’m nearly terrified of snakes.  I don’t know why, or exactly when, this inordinate fear developed.  When I was a young lad my brothers and myself used to play with garter snakes, and would have scoffed at the idea they might be dangerous.  Yet as I experienced a number of encounters with poisonous species in my twenties and thirties I learned a healthy respect for at first, and later began to fear them.  By the time I was in my later thirties I would no longer touch a garter snake.  One of my first rather disconcerting experiences with a poisonous reptile didn’t even happen to me, yet I almost break out in a sweat as I remember it today.

I hadn’t lived in Jacksonville, Florida too long in the early 1960s.  My wife and I had met another young couple named Rodney “Rocky” Lewis, and his wife Harriet.  They had a baby born unto them during that period of time.  Shortly after the baby’s birth they took it to Valdosta, Georgia to meet both sets of grandparents for a weekend.  Only a few days prior to that they had rented a small cottage near the bank of the St. John’s River.  When they returned from Georgia, near midnight Sunday, Harriet entered the house in the darkness, and laid the baby down on their bed before turning on the light in the bedroom.  As she snapped the switch on the light she turned to the baby to begin preparing it for bed.  There, on the bed, within inches of the baby was a coiled cottonmouth water moccasin.

Although nearly passing out with fright, Harriet managed to contain herself for the few seconds it took her to gently draw the baby back from the snake and pick it up.  She ran from the house to where Rocky was removing bags from their car.  She handed the baby to Rocky, and only then did she scream and go into hysterics.  She utterly refused to ever enter that house again.  They drove to our home and spent the remainder of the night with us, rented a different home far from the river the following day, and Rocky had the job of moving their belongings.

Quiet Sunday

We were so very lucky to have some more snow fall on top of what we previously had.  At least we had time to clean up the last storm before this one arrived.

In the first photo a friendly critter surveys his surroundings while helping himself to a few tidbits of a smorgasboard.  He can’t understand what is happening across the road.  If he were a chicken he’d cross over there and find out, but…

In the second photo we can see what the bluejay was watching.  It is the aftermath of my grandnephew Brian getting his ATV stuck while attempting to push the heavy snow from his yard.  His brother Patrick had to pull him out with the four-wheel-drive pickup.  We won’t mention that this was the second time for this event.

The third photo shows that now those two have left the area, even if temporarily, our friendly little woodpecker came to visit, and partake of whatever that stuff is stuck in the suet.

In the fourth we can note the woodpecker has moved over a few feet to that square tree with the icing on top.  He is probably studying that thing attached to the other square tree to determine if it is edible or not.  He has no realization of what a thermometer sending unit is for an indoor/outdoor temperature rig.  The barn in the background used to belong to my brother Lawrence.  It is where he at one time milked his dairy twice a day.  It now belongs to his son Bernard, and is across the road from my home.

A Boating We Will Go

I bought a small wooden boat and engine while in Jacksonville, Florida during the early 1960s.  It was all painted up a pretty white, with bright red trim, and I was sort of proud to own such a fine example of prestige.  It wasn’t everybody that had their very own boat, no matter how small it may have been.

I decided to drop it into the beautiful water of the St. John’s River one bright summer evening.  Towing it down the road on its trailer, we were in a long string of cars.  One stopped for a red light, causing the entire string behind it to stop, except for the guy behind me.  He only stopped after hitting the engine of my boat.  Although I wasn’t happy, to say the least, I found no damage so we each continued on our separate ways.

I got the boat into the water, and Nora and I climbed aboard, off to explore the nooks and crannies of the river’s edges.  We were moseying along about as fast as it would go, which wasn’t all that fast, when with no warning the boat did a square 90 degree turn to the left.  Nora and I managed to stay in it, but just barely.  We were probably a half mile from the boat ramp, but unexpectedly friends of ours, Al Vredenberg and his wife, happened upon us.  I lay on the front of my boat and held on to the rear of his while he towed us back to our starting point.  Let me tell you that was a long way, hanging on to each boat with my hands.  People were not meant to be tow ropes.

It seemed that the lower part of my boat engine was separated from the boat attachment by several rubber mounts to decrease engine vibration to the boat.  Apparently when the car hit me previously, it either broke some of them, or weakened them to the point they separated while going down the river.  This allowed the engine to turn sideways all by itself, and caused the boat to go into the uncontrolled turn.

I bought new parts, installed them, and sold the entire rig.  I decided boating was not my thing, so I bought a motorcycle to play with.

Musings

I have a snow bank in my front yard about five feet high amassed by plowing snow from the communal driveway I share with my daughter and family.  The storm here was nothing compared to some others areas, notably in the Midwest, but we did get more than we’ve had at one time in quite a few years.

It may not be perfectly precise, but about 6:30 AM, Friday, February 4, 2011 is probably as close as you need to get to being the middle of winter.  Starting then it’s all downhill rolling toward the first day of spring which starts at 6:21 PM, March 20, 2011.

If you hadn’t noticed yet, the days are getting notably longer.  Back on the first day of winter, last December 21^st, our day was 8 hours 46 minutes in length.  Friday, February 4^th, our day will be 9 hours 56 minutes, an hour and ten minutes more of daylight, nearly an hour of that in the evening.  These facts are for the top of New York State, or the 45 degree North Latitude region, half way between the equator and the north pole.  They vary with latitude.

Our Northern Neighbors

Are you aware that Pelee Island, Ontario, Canada is in southwestern Lake Erie.  It is the southernmost inhabited land in Canada.  South of Pelee Island lies Middle Island, the southernmost land in Canada, although uninhabited.  South of that, yet within the waters of Lake Erie at about 41 degrees 38 minutes north latitude, is the southernmost point of Canada.

Believe it or not, parts, or all, of 27 states within the United States lie north of that latitude.  They are Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and, of course, Alaska.  You knew about that last one all the time, didn’t you?

When you think of your northern neighbors, think again because some of them are not as far north as we usually think of them.

Now, just for fun, if you were to follow a compass due south from Middle Island in Lake Erie, which is about due north of central Ohio, where might you walk into the Gulf of Mexico?  What if I told you that Middle Island is approximately 900 miles from the east coast at Boston?  So, as Jacksonville, Florida is near the east coast, then a point possibly somewhere around 900 miles west of there might be close?  Would that be in Louisiana, or maybe eastern Texas?  In fact, following a compass south from Middle Island would have you pass maybe 50 miles or so west of Jacksonville, and you would ultimately go swimming in the gulf somewhere south of the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida area.

Just Stuff I've Heard

My oldest brother, Bert, told me once there was an old adage that said:  Half your grain, and half your hay, must remain on Groundhog’s Day.  Seeming as winter is approximately half over then, it makes perfect sense.

Punxsutawney in a Native American tongue means ‘Land of the sand fleas.”  That’s almost as good a claim to fame as being noted as the last bastion of the ridge running coal miners.

As Punxsutawney isn’t all that far from Pittsburgh, it may be that this whole Groundhog’s Day thing is some sort of advertising gimmick for the Superbowl.  It doesn’t hang in there with clothing malfunctions, but the Steelers got to make do with what they got.

If you believe everything you hear or read, you might want to look into the tale about February second being forty days after Christmas, and as such Mary, mother of Jesus, went through a rite of purification on that date, and that started the whole bit about Candlemas Day, which is the same day as Groundhog’s day.

When I was very young my Daddy said something about groundhog, and I thought he was talking about sausage.  That’s not true, I just made it up.

On February 2, 2022 when you say the date it’s going to sound like a train going by. Too, too too, ohhh too too.

Trucking Along

I think it was 1954, but I’m not positive.  Mort Backus decided to quit the milk route he had been running, and he started a used car business.  My brother Bert bought the truck and milk route from Mort, and in addition to running a dairy farm, he began the tedious job of hauling milk from dairy farms to the milk plant in town.  It was a seven day a week job, rain or shine, hot or cold, but then so too was farming.  Like the mail, that milk had to go to the plant every day.

Bert soon found that running a milk route, with its repair and upkeep costs added to day to day expenses, was just about a break-even endeavor, and if he was to enjoy a profit it had to be from using the truck in some other manner in addition to the primary job.  This brings us to the moving business.

Bert started to take on an occasional job of moving people from one home to another.  He would normally take a fairly long hard look at the household belongings, take into consideration the distance to travel, account for our time, (I was his helper) and quote a job price to the homeowner, take it or leave it.

One day a little old lady stopped us on a street in town, and asked what Bert would charge to move her several blocks away, right in town.  Without leaving his seat in the truck, Bert noted it was a very small bungalow, quoted her $100, and offered to do the job the next day.  The lady accepted.

After milking the cattle the next morning, then running the milk route, we pulled up to the house to begin the quick-money good-profit moving job.  The house had a cellar.  Bert had not noticed that.  That cellar was packed almost solid with glass bottle canned goods.  We had to carry those bottles a couple or three at a time from that cellar, up a set of narrow stairs to the truck, place them where they wouldn’t get broke, and then another trip, and another, and another.  We managed one trip across town that day, and didn’t even finish the cellar.

The second day we finished the cellar, and started on the birds.  Yes, the little old lady had rooms full of birds in cages.  One or two at a time for hours we removed them to the truck.  One more truckload that afternoon.  Then a flying (pun intended) trip across town to spend some more hours unloading the squawking menagerie, as well as the remainder of those blasted bottles of pickles, beans, and whatever.

On the third day it was back for finishing the one-day easy $100. job.  That was the day we had to recruit help to move the piano.  As we pulled away from the new home for the third, and last, time, Bert turned in the seat, and said to me, “If I ever decide to take a job again without looking at it, I want you to kick me right square in the ass,” and with that we laughed off and on all the way home.