College is the first opportunity to chose where you live and it was not a close call – Florida. We had vacationed there for years plus the tales of natural adventures filled the books I had read. I simply wanted to cease being a tourist; I wanted to live there.
So I went to The Florida State University in Tallahassee. The cities’ Seminole meaning was an abandoned site whose resources had been exhausted. This translation amused many as “there’s nothing to do here” was a frequent complaint. Those people simply ignored the venue’s many opportunities.
Adventure destinations were always dictated by transportation; no car, one walk’s. So off to the nearest State Park I headed one Saturday morning in September. Despite several trips to Killearn Gardens I rarely had to walk the whole distance as a citizen usually stopped and offered a ride. My first expedition in the land of coral snakes, cottonmouths and the eastern diamondback rattlesnake produced a two foot eastern king snake which I knew only from books; fair enough!
As time went by the snake hunters found one another and somebody had a car. The Tram Road circuit was a biggie first shown to me by Joe from New Jersey and another guy whose sole goal was a diamondback over six feet (I heard later he found that which he had long sought). Starting at a point just off the truck route, the road could be taken to Wacissa and from there to deeper forest roads. Because much of the circuit was sandy roads it was often possible to gauge snake activity by the number of trails in the sand. Furthermore a trail with no tire track, encountered after a car passed, allowed some precision on when the snake had been there. Plus you could tell which way the snake had gone and usually some useful idea of species. More than one snake must have crossed the road and thought, “made it”, only to find himself suddenly in a pillow case.
Because much of the Tram Road circuit was unpaved it was pretty much a before dark trek; long on eastern king snakes, rat snakes, rattlesnakes. Because it was paved County 67, running south from Telogia, was the night time place. Good, lightly traveled, paved roads and an abundance of scarlet snakes and scarlet king snakes were its glory. Besides these two premiere species there was plenty else as 67 ran from hardwood forest down to the Gulf coast. Carrabelle was the turn around point where we’d get some little pecan pies and Dr Peppers and relax in an oyster shell parking lot before the trip back up 67. Those were the days (nights actually).
We all had this vague foreboding these places would be erased by civilization after we left but return visits suggest not. On one family vacation which, as luck would have it, me, Mrs. SS, and a pile of the shavings were dining on gas station food (the really fast food) in an oyster shell parking lot. We got back in the car, I started whistling the theme song from Indiana Jones, and they started screaming “NO DADDY, DON’T”. They generally enjoyed these little side trips once events unfolded but maintained that initially screaming put them in better voice for those times that screaming was called for. On this occasion a short drive up County 67 turned up a grey rat snake on its morning outing.
So I came to Carrabelle for my interest; I came for the snakes. And I was not misinformed.
Recently Shaving 3 loaned me a copy of In Search of Nature by E.O. Wilson. Chapter one is “The Serpent” where in is said “ I can testify from personal experience that on any given day you are ten times more likely to meet a snake in Florida than in Brazil or New Guinea.” I knew there were more snakes in Florida than in Tennessee and I also knew of no where there were more. Turns out, if snakes are what you seek, it’s the best place on Earth.
ML
6/4/07
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
10. Summer of the copperheads
It takes surprisingly little to become an expert on snakes. Library card captures of Ditmars, Oliver, Pope, Schmidt & Inger and Conant, plus plenty of field trips, and a kid can know more about snakes than 99.999% of the grownups. The only reason this knowledge carries special tribal prestige is that people are afraid of snakes. And the person, regardless of age, who moves forward while others scream and flee is possessor of an ancient power.
It is a power because, despite the commonly encountered ‘snakes are your friends because they eat grain gobbling rodents’, the more important truth is that snakes kill more people every year than all other non-human vertebrates combined. Furthermore, while only around one in twenty venomous snake bites kills a person, the other 19 are frequently left in wreathing pain for days and then the bitten appendage may rot off. And this sequela does not go unnoticed by the principle’s family and neighbors. Snakes are, as a snake once put it, “more powerful than the finger of a king”. Fire power, plus they are basically small and therefore way too close when first spotted, accounts for their fearsome status. Hence, the leap from a kid who plays with snakes to full blown witch doctor status is power over the poisonous.
Mike helped me build a cinderblock snake pit in the basement despite my mother’s position of “we’ll see” during the constructions phase. In the event she let me buy a cottonmouth from Ray Singleton and we put him in the pit. Not long after the snake’s arrival Dave came by with his father’s excellent camera and close-up lens. To take real advantage of the close-up lens full powers somebody had to do something they had never done before. Therefore I have a close-up picture of the first venomous snake I ever touched. Dave claimed that there was a ring of my sweat around the snake’s neck when I tossed him down. This photo shoot did not really count as the moment of full powers over the serpent. What was required was to go mano-o-snakeo, on his home turf, i.e. catch one.
So as a young nature counselor I was full of long pent-up desire to catch a poisonous snake and when the time came it came in spades. It all started one night when another counselor got clipped on the calf by what had to have been a poisonous snake. Nobody saw the snake but he spent some time in the hospital. Only a few nights later we were sitting in the head office monitoring the ebb and flow of a capture-the-flag battle down in junior camp. In runs a kid “Mr. L, there’s a snake”. Nothing new here until I get to the excitement where Flynn (maybe nine) has one tennis shoed foot gently on top of the front half of a 2 foot copperhead. And he was surrounded by about 50 kids with 50 flash lights (Nice stage lighting; the sawed-off appreciate an audience). Snake stick retrieved from the Nature Hut I put one hand under Flynn’s arm pit, to give him a little extra lift, and told him to jump.
Now my plan was to pin the copperhead’s head, as these things were supposed to be done, pick him up behind his head, and take him to the Nature Hut. As it turned out the snake had other plans and took off like a bat-out-of-hell when Flynn jumped off him. Fortunately the stage lighting crew scattered. Some chase eventually resulted in the planned out come. The Head Counselor said “well done”. Nobody bitten, snake on display, and I just made the leap.
As events unfolded it was less of a leap and more of an ongoing sprint around Camp putting the cuffs, so to speak, on pit vipers. A few nights after the first copperhead, just after lights out, a camper + counselor came to say there was a snake in the bathroom –copperhead two. Within days at an evening Jr/Sr. camp cook out in Sr camp….”Mr L there’s a snake under the cloths line”. That would be number three. Within days, a group hike from Camp turned up a big number four.
The Head Counselor, a very level headed leader, was starting to get worried. Not only had a counselor been bitten and both Jr and Sr. camp suddenly infested with copperheads, the capture on the hike made it look like we were also surrounded. A call to Tennessee Fish and Game indicated that the entire state was not being overrun with copperheads. I did my best to share in Camp’s official concern but in truth I was having a really good summer.
ML
5/28/07
It is a power because, despite the commonly encountered ‘snakes are your friends because they eat grain gobbling rodents’, the more important truth is that snakes kill more people every year than all other non-human vertebrates combined. Furthermore, while only around one in twenty venomous snake bites kills a person, the other 19 are frequently left in wreathing pain for days and then the bitten appendage may rot off. And this sequela does not go unnoticed by the principle’s family and neighbors. Snakes are, as a snake once put it, “more powerful than the finger of a king”. Fire power, plus they are basically small and therefore way too close when first spotted, accounts for their fearsome status. Hence, the leap from a kid who plays with snakes to full blown witch doctor status is power over the poisonous.
Mike helped me build a cinderblock snake pit in the basement despite my mother’s position of “we’ll see” during the constructions phase. In the event she let me buy a cottonmouth from Ray Singleton and we put him in the pit. Not long after the snake’s arrival Dave came by with his father’s excellent camera and close-up lens. To take real advantage of the close-up lens full powers somebody had to do something they had never done before. Therefore I have a close-up picture of the first venomous snake I ever touched. Dave claimed that there was a ring of my sweat around the snake’s neck when I tossed him down. This photo shoot did not really count as the moment of full powers over the serpent. What was required was to go mano-o-snakeo, on his home turf, i.e. catch one.
So as a young nature counselor I was full of long pent-up desire to catch a poisonous snake and when the time came it came in spades. It all started one night when another counselor got clipped on the calf by what had to have been a poisonous snake. Nobody saw the snake but he spent some time in the hospital. Only a few nights later we were sitting in the head office monitoring the ebb and flow of a capture-the-flag battle down in junior camp. In runs a kid “Mr. L, there’s a snake”. Nothing new here until I get to the excitement where Flynn (maybe nine) has one tennis shoed foot gently on top of the front half of a 2 foot copperhead. And he was surrounded by about 50 kids with 50 flash lights (Nice stage lighting; the sawed-off appreciate an audience). Snake stick retrieved from the Nature Hut I put one hand under Flynn’s arm pit, to give him a little extra lift, and told him to jump.
Now my plan was to pin the copperhead’s head, as these things were supposed to be done, pick him up behind his head, and take him to the Nature Hut. As it turned out the snake had other plans and took off like a bat-out-of-hell when Flynn jumped off him. Fortunately the stage lighting crew scattered. Some chase eventually resulted in the planned out come. The Head Counselor said “well done”. Nobody bitten, snake on display, and I just made the leap.
As events unfolded it was less of a leap and more of an ongoing sprint around Camp putting the cuffs, so to speak, on pit vipers. A few nights after the first copperhead, just after lights out, a camper + counselor came to say there was a snake in the bathroom –copperhead two. Within days at an evening Jr/Sr. camp cook out in Sr camp….”Mr L there’s a snake under the cloths line”. That would be number three. Within days, a group hike from Camp turned up a big number four.
The Head Counselor, a very level headed leader, was starting to get worried. Not only had a counselor been bitten and both Jr and Sr. camp suddenly infested with copperheads, the capture on the hike made it look like we were also surrounded. A call to Tennessee Fish and Game indicated that the entire state was not being overrun with copperheads. I did my best to share in Camp’s official concern but in truth I was having a really good summer.
ML
5/28/07
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