Two Kinds of Snakes

My Dad says there are only two kinds of snakes: dead ones and live ones and I'm scared of both!

After announcing my abysmal ignorance to the entire world - complete with pictures - I am here to retract my previous statement that the snake we encountered on our driveway Saturday was a "rattlesnake".

I have received second hand information that came straight from a Forestry Ranger - that my snake was not a rattlesnake - but a Copperhead. I confirmed this tonight on the UGA site.

I'm sorry.
I stopped reading Mark Trail when he caved in to political correctness and stopped smoking a pipe.

Actually, I never read much of Mark Trail in the Sunday Comics - I just couldn't find the humor in it.

But if I had - maybe I wouldn't have mistaken the distinctive "hourglass" pattern on that snake's back - for a "diamond-back" pattern. And maybe I wouldn't have continued to exam the diminishing tail of that snake - LOOKING FOR SOME SIGN OF A RATTLER!

I always thought Copperheads had a brighter - new penny - sort of color to their heads.

I saw one once. Long ago, I worked for a 1000 watt Christian radio station and I operated the board for Pastor Steve Croyle's local afternoon talk show. There are some churches not too far from my home that take very literally the verse in the Bible about "taking up serpents" and Pastor Steve interviewed someone from one of those churches.

It was a non-confrontational interview (I mean do you really want to get a man riled that passes deadly snakes around in Sunday School?) - after the program, Steve and I went out to the guy's car where he produced a small wooden box with a Copperhead in it. It seems to me that the snake had a very bright head. Anyway, I was glad that he didn't invite us to have a prayer meeting.

So naturally, I wrongly assumed that the snake must have been a RATTLER.

Besides, there is a certain amount of glory associated with triumphing over a RATTLESNAKE. I remember my brother's first car - it was like a 1949 model Plymouth or something. But only a short time before he bought it, the car had been pictured on the front page of the Cedartown Standard (our local yarn) - because the former owner had killed a RATTLESNAKE in that car.

So, of course, after all the adrenaline subsided and after I was sure the snake was dead, and after I had tossed and turned almost all night thinking about what might have been - I liked the idea of having triumphed over a RATTLER... I don't live too very far away from Cedartown - perhaps the Standard would want my picture?

Believe me, I would much rather put the snake episode behind me. I would also like to be able to walk around in my yard again without constantly looking down.