“Leave
that ol’ snake alone!”
Aunt Mary was growing impatient with me, but never before had I
seen a snake like that, especially one so big.
“Ain’t nothin’ but a chicken snake. He won’t
bother you.”
I was nine or ten at the time, fascinated by every kind of critter,
and known for catching more than a few to bring home. In my neighborhood
up north, harmless two-foot garters were my idea of serious snakes,
so I’d been sternly warned before embarking on this summer-vacation
trip that Tennessee woods seethed with the likes of deadly copperheads,
rattlers, cottonmouths, and radiation-hybrid pythonized cobras at
least forty feet long . . .
“Leave
that snake alone. We’re here to fish.”
My great-aunt Mary’s world impressed me as very different
from my own. She and Uncle Carl lived in a ramshackle homestead
in the kind of backwoods holler where salamanders sculpt swishes
in the mud and hairy spiders bide their time knitting decorative
hangings for the outhouse eaves. Mary impressed me as a tough bird—a
couple hundred years old, I was pretty sure—who worked hard,
honored the Scriptures, and loved her family. To see her eyes sparkle,
you need only say, “Would you like to go fish—”
Before you could finish the invitation, she’d be piling into
the car, ready to roll.
That chicken snake found us along the Tennessee River near New Johnsonville.
My father left Mary and me at the end of the old bridge road, a
causeway long since abandoned and overgrown, while he and my cousin
explored the other side. Mary liked to keep her fishing simple,
so as we sat there contentedly amid piles of rocks and great jagged
shards of concrete, our state-of-the-art precision gear consisted
of cane poles and a bucket.
The sun shimmered low in the sky, dappling the water with swirling
sparkles of silver and gold. Weary trees hung over us, weeping the
fleeting tears of ephemeral willowflies. Schools of bream and bluegills
swarmed in a frenzy below the surface, gorging on the all-you-can-eat
willowfly smorgasbord. Catching a pan-sizer simply required reaching
up for a fly to thread on the hook, then flipping it onto the water,
waiting five seconds, and claiming the prize.
That’s when the snake appeared, right out from under my rock.
He was
humongous, at least six feet—if not forty feet or more—black
as the night, and I’m pretty sure I could see the blood of
naive little boys dripping from his fangs. After Mary’s assurance
that he engendered no mortal threat, that old snake piqued my interest
considerably more than fishing. Using a long stick, I urged him
to slither about, then followed him crevice to crack to cubbyhole
as his attention gradually shifted from seeking a tasty meal to
eluding this nuisance kid.
“Get over here and fish. Leave that ol’ snake alone!”
The snake and I paused to eye each other warily. Breaking the tension,
I poked him again . . .
And he took off!—a hundred miles an hour straight toward Aunt
Mary!
She leapt to her feet, flung the cane pole aside, then snatched
up a huge log at least twice her size and proceeded to beat that
snake within an inch of his life. The poor feller eventually managed
to escape, and we never saw him again. I sat there laughing so hard
I couldn’t catch my breath.
"You
hush now,” was all Mary said as she returned to her fishing.
I decided right then that if I were a snake under a rock, I’d
want to be warned:
Don’t mess with Aunt Mary.
I’ve always tried to learn from others, searching for meaning
in the minutiae of everyday life, those pearls of wisdom that too
often slip by unnoticed, so I watched the grown-ups’ reactions
as I told and retold my Aunt Mary snake story, always earning hearty
laughs. Their comments led me to another conclusion:
It’s
easier to give advice to somebody with a snake under his rock than
it is to heed it when the snake’s under your own.
Many years later I had a chance to go out there with Aunt Mary again.
You can see the causeway from the observation deck at Nathan Bedford
State Park, but it’s mostly washed away now, eroded by the
currents of time and change. There are still places to sit by the
water and fish for bream, though, or to reminisce about conquests
past. I reminded Mary about that hilarious incident with the chicken
snake. She smiled, but I don’t think she found it very amusing.
“That snake wasn’t botherin’ nobody,” she
said, “until you started pokin’ him with that stick.”
Suddenly, my story had new meaning:
Live and let live.
He’d never have panicked Aunt Mary if I’d not scared
him into fleeing.
There’s plenty of room in the world for snakes, and they certainly
play a vital role in the life cycles along the banks of a river.
We were out there catching our dinner and, well, so was he. Too
many people spend too much time worrying over how others live, poking
each other with all manner of sticks instead of learning how to
share a pile of rocks in one little corner of the universe.
The last time I ever saw Aunt Mary was right after Uncle Carl died.
My father and I went to see her, and for the first time, this increasingly
frail woman didn’t light up and wonder if we planned to go
fishing. She had some new silk flowers, and she wanted a ride out
to Carl’s grave.
I’d never visited the old cemetery there in middle-Tennessee,
my first chance to see headstones commemorating five generations
of kin. Mary pointed out each one, weaving tales about the lifetimes
of people I never knew, her eyes glistening with the memories. We
picked our way through some tall grass, and I wanted to warn her
about snakes, but that story didn’t seem so funny anymore,
plus I had a lump in my throat, so I let her talk, and I listened.
We cleaned up Carl’s grave, clearing the windblown debris
that nature scatters indifferently, while Mary stood vigil and nodded
approval. I wanted to take her fishing right then, but the time
wasn’t right. It turned out there would never be another chance.
Mary and Carl are buried side-by-side now, and when I think about
that old snake I realize I’d figured out something else listening
to her stories and watching her place flowers in honor of the man
who’d shared her life. She’d said it that day the snake
came around looking for a tasty meal, but I was too young to understand:
“We’re here to fish.”
I’ll bet countless generations of chicken snakes since then
have warned their young’ns to watch out for Mary . . .
But it’s moments in time that we have to watch for. No matter
what you do, or where you go, or how hard you try, there will always
be snakes in one form or another crossing your path, and there will
be only so many days in a year when sunshine dapples the water while
trees weep willowflies and schools of bream gorge . . .
And there will be only so many days in a lifetime when a tough old
bird who works hard and loves her family can share this splendor
with a grandnephew who lives too far away.
Fish while you can . . .
Then cherish those moments, and don’t be distracted by snakes.
* * END * * |
