Talking with my Husband

I think I am blessed to in a marriage where we truly enjoy talking to each other. When I retired I wondered if we'd ever get bored with each other's company, and I am happy to report that so far that has not been the case.

The best thing about my husband, besides his sense of humor and his willingness to make breakfast most mornings, is his stories. He has such a good memory, and his childhood was so different from mine that I am endlessly fascinated and amazed by the stories he tells me.

Take this morning. There we were on the porch, both of us very tired from a busy, busy weekend. He'd gone with me Saturday to the Inland Waterways Festival where I was telling stories, then helped me re-stock our booths at the Antique Mall of Marietta before we took the evening sternwheeler cruise. We were late getting home; it was almost midnight before we got to bed. We were up early again Sunday, me to return to the festival for one more performance, and Larry to go with our son to pick up a hog we'd bought. I bought groceries on the way home so I was a tired puppy when I got here; he'd worked outside, got the hog, and had it in a trailer behind the truck, ready to go to the slaughterhouse.

This morning he was up and out early to deliver the hog (hams, bacons and more on the way soon!). I did pick-up-tidy-up, as the house got pretty cluttered as we ran in and out. Then we sat down with our coffee to watch the rain and talk.

The conversation turned to the eastern timber rattlesnake that had been killed a few miles away. As far as I know it's the first one sighted in our area in about 40 years; the last one was killed about a half mile from our home by a neighbor, in the 1970's. (I am not a fan of killing snakes unless they're threatening me or someone else, and in both of these instances that was the case.)

Larry hates snakes; where he grew up there were many, many copperheads. The area was rocky, with steep hills and plenty of forest. There were abandoned mines and slag piles at mine sites. The slag piles hold heat, and the snakes love a warm rock.

"I remember once I was out in the woods," he said this morning, " and I passed an abandoned mine. It was all caved in inside,and I could hear them, moving around in there. Rattlers, moving and shaking their rattles."

His words painted an instant, vivid image in my mind. Big snakes, in the half-light that filtered in through the brush-covered opening, coiling around and between the fallen stones, eyes glowing...it gave me chill bumps.

from NY Dept of Environmental Conversation's

website.

This story reminded me of the tale of the man who would go up on the mountain every evening to practice his fiddle and drink because it annoyed people when he played. One day a rattlesnake slithered out from under a rock. It scared the man but he continued to play, and the snake started swaying to the music. The snake eventually left when the man stopped playing.

The man returned day after day, and more and more snakes came out to listen, swaying to the music. His playing improved; people down below began to comment on how good he sounded up there, the notes echoing off the cliffs.

One night maybe the man drank too much; maybe he stumbled and accidentally stepped on one of the snakes. Maybe that's what caused the snakes to turn on him, because when he didn't return the next morning and they went looking for him, they found him on the mountain, his fiddle still in his hand, covered in snake bites.

Talk about chill bumps! I have heard that this supposedly happened in West Virginia, but most people claim it happened at Fiddler's Rock, Tennessee. You can read that version on The Moonlit Road's site.

The other morning we were talking about Larry's elderly cousin, who can no longer drive and lives in a fairly remote place in the coalfields. Most of  the men in Larry's family were coal miners, so I assumed this cousin was as well.

"No," Larry said, "he never worked in the mines. He was a gravedigger."

"All his life??" I was amazed. I guess I knew someone had to do that job, but never gave it much thought.

"Yes, I guess he retired from it. He was digging graves back when they dug them by hand."

Now I need to talk to this cousin again. I can just imagine the stories he might have to tell.

And that reminded me of this photo, found in my grandmother's scrapbook. The scrapbook contained photos from around 1915 until 1925, as best I can tell. Who is this, where was she, what was this place? Although there is writing on the back, it's illegible so we'll never know. But oh, the stories one could spin around this image.

All of Larry's stories do not spark such dark thoughts! His tales of childhood escapades, like telling everyone he had been bear-hunting and almost caught a giant bear, or stories of hiding in the outhouse, about his pet crow and so many others are hilarious and make my tame townie childhood pale in comparison. I don't think this man will ever bore me.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Visitors

I had just sat down in my rocker on the porch, when I looked over to the birdfeeder and saw this looking at me:

I don't know if he/she was after seeds or birds, but I would bet the latter.

What did I do? Why, of course I called for Larry, who took an old mop handle and nudged the snake off the rail--which made it fall about 8 feet to the ground, poor thing.

The black snake (fairly harmless to humans) didn't appreciate the treatment and left lickety-split.

The dogs came running but after sniffing around decided they didn't want anything to do with that visitor.

A few minutes later the skies opened and Little Mister, as we call this male hummingbird who hangs around the porch, came and perched on a nail under the eaves,

right beside Larry. This little guy is so comfortable with us around that he often perches only inches from us, and sometimes offers commentary on what we're doing.

He was quite wet! He didn't stay long, and like the snake soon went lickety-split about his business.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Good Old Aesop: The Man and the Snake

Aesop certainly knew how to tell a tale, and how to pinpoint human behavior. This tale, which has been told and re-told in many cultures (some probably even pre-dating Aesop--he got his tales from somewhere, after all!) was mentioned by a storytelling friend recently, and it seems apt for our times.

The Man and the Snake

 A man was out walking one cold winter day when he heard a rustling sound nearby. he investigated and found a snake, curled up near a rock. 

The snake looked up and spoke. "I am about to die. It is too cold for me. Please, put me under your coat and warm me."

"No," said the man. "I know you. If I pick you up, you will bite me, and your bite will kill me."

"No," said the snake. I promise I will not bite you if you will save my life."

Finally the man gave in. He picked up the snake and tucked it into his jacket, where the heat from his body would provide warmth. When he reached his home he walked over to the fireplace and unbuttoned his jacket. As he pulled the snake out the snake struck, sinking its fangs deep into the man's arm.

"What did you do?" the man cried. "Why did you bite me? I saved your life! I trusted you!"

"Ah," said the snake. as the man laid dying on the floor. "Yes, you saved me. But you knew I was a snake when you picked me up."

This story is often told by storytellers as a warning against drugs and other potential addictions and addictive behaviors.

There are many other versions of this story. Here are a half dozen of online sources:

Wikipedia offers a wide variety of versions of the story.

Fables of Aesop includes this story along with many more.

First People website has a Cherokee tale with the same theme.

Storyteller Mike Lockett offers his adaptation of the story on his site.

The venerable Snopes explores a few variants with different creatures in the starring roles. 

There's even a song by Johnny Rivers about this fable:

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Blowing Vipers and Exploding Snakes

My husband is full of stories, some of them believable, some not so much.

His stories about his family's pet crow seem reasonable and true. Jimmy, as the crow was known, came to them as a baby that Larry's father brought home from the woods after he'd been out on a hunting trip. They raised the crow on an eyedropper and watered down milk and it eventually grew to full size and full of nuisance and entertainment. Jimmy, for example, liked to ride around on the back of their old hound dog Drum, and Jimmy loved to devil the hogs, dive-bombing them unmercifully.

He also liked to divebomb the redheaded neighbor kids, which led to them striking at him with a baseball bat and breaking Jimmy's legs. Larry's mother bandaged the poor legs with popsicle sticks and tape, and while they were healing Jimmy rode around on Drum.

There are lots of other Jimmy stories and I believe them. But a snake that swells its head up, and then falls over stiff on its back and looking dead?? No way.

And a snake that explodes? Not even.

But...

Another friend told us this week about a snake his uncle (or was it his father? I can't remember!) found. The snake raised up and its head looked just like a cobra. When his uncle didn't run, the snake stiffened and fell flat on the ground, looking dead. The uncle picked it up and threw it in the back seat of his car to take and show someone a half hour's drive away. Every now and then the snake would raise up, and he'd holler at it to quit that! The snake would go stiff again and fall over, until finally they reached their destination.

Sound crazy? I thought so too. But Larry said yes, he'd seen such a snake and it scared the life almost out of him. I sat there looking at the two of them as if they were a two-headed circus sideshow, sure that they were conniving to trick me into believing this weird tale.

And then  looked it up. Larry called it a "blowing viper" so that's what I searched. And lo and behold:

By Bladerunner8u - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18329270

The Eastern Hognose snake, I learned, acts somewhat like a cobra when threatened. It flattens its head and rises up looking menacing and as if it is about to strike. If that doesn't scare away the threat, the snake then falls over and plays dead. It's a real snake! It has lots of names too--Wikipedia lists the following: Eastern hog-nosed snake,^[2] spreading adder, hog-nosed snake, adder, bastard rattlesnake, black adder, black blowing viper, black hog-nosed snake, black viper snake, blauser, blower, blowing adder, blowing snake, blow(ing) viper, blow snake, buckwheat-nose snake, calico snake, checkered adder, checquered adder, chunk head, common hog-nosed snake, common spreading adder, deaf adder, eastern hognose snake, flat-head, flat-head(ed) adder, hay-nose snake, hissing adder, hissing snake, hog-nosed adder, hog-nosed rattler, hog-nose snake, hog-nosed viper, hissing viper, (mountain) moccasin, North American adder, North American hog-nosed snake, pilot, poison viper, puff(ing) adder, red snake, rock adder, rossel bastard, sand adder, sand viper, spotted (spreading) adder, spread nelly, spread-head moccasin, spread-head snake, spread-head viper, flat-head adder (spreading) viper.

And it comes in all kinds of colors and patterns, sometimes resembling a black snake, other times looking like a copperhead, which is what Larry saw. So. True, not pulling my leg.

But the exploding snake?

Larry said that he and his Daddy were going berry picking one July day. They had their lard cans hooked through their belts and they were deep into a patch when they heard the unmistakable sound of a rattler's warning. Now, they had Larry's little dog Blackie with them. Blackie ran over to the snake and began barking and running around it in circles.

From http://www.publicdomainpictures.net 

Larry was terrified because the snake kept striking at his dog, and he loved that little dog. Blackie kept just out of the snake's reach. The rattler twisted and twisted, striking at the dog and then one strike went off target--the fangs sank deep into the rattler's own body.

Now here is where it gets strange. The snake began to swell up where it had bitten itself! It swelled and swelled and then Larry's Dad got a big stick and hit it, and the snake exploded! No way, I said! A snake can't be allergic to its own venom, can it? That just doesn't make sense.

So tonight I looked it up. What happens if a rattler or copperhead bites itself? Will they die from the venom?

No, the experts say. The snakes have an immunity to their own venom. Except...if the venom is very fast-acting. It takes a bit for the immunity to kick in, says one snake expert, and it is possible for the snake to swell in the area of the bit. And if the snake was struck on that spot? I didn't find any answer to that, but it seems reasonable enough that if it was swelled enough, yes, it could explode. Sort of like when a doctor punctures a stoved up toe or finger and the blood spurts out in a huge fountain. TMI, I know.

So, I guess my hubby is not telling tall tales. This time.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Snake Tales

This fella was in our chicken house a couple years ago

To my husband the only good snake is a dead snake. I am a little more lenient--I figure if they aren't bothering me, I won't bother them. I have always heard that if a black snake is around, copperheads stay away, so I consider a black snake in the root cellar or the chicken house kind of comforting .

My husband, on the other hand, doesn't like sharing our eggs or being surprised by a sudden slither in the dark. Last summer he went into the cellar to get something and when he tried to close the door, it bounced back open. He slammed it again and something fell from the top of the door onto his head. Yep, it was a black snake. I am sorry to report that the snake did not survive the encounter.

When we were tearing down the last log cabin, Larry encountered another snake while he was removing the chimney stone. He took off one way, 

the snake went the other. 

And I was on the ground laughing so hard!

Then there was the time I was working in my flowerbeds and flipped over a rock to find a copperhead raised and ready to strike. I struck first with my shovel, but unfortunately I didn't cut the snake in two and he was still trying to strike. I was in a tight spot--if I removed the shovel, the snake would probably get me, but I could not stand there all night holding the shovel. I called Larry, who couldn't hear me, apparently, until I said, "It's a COPPERHEAD!" Then he was out the door in a flash and dispatched the snake speedily.

Anyone who lives in the country probably has a close encounter of the snakey kind that provides good storytelling fodder. (This next story was my column in Two Lane Livin' Magazine a couple months back).  Last fall a man told me this story. He swore it was true, and that it happened to some men he knew.

His friends were fishing near a place known as the Smoke Hole. According to legend, the Native Americans used a cave in the area to smoke meat, and the smoke from their fires would rise up and come out a hole in the rocks in the mountain above--thus the name.

Anyway, to go back to the story: It was early spring and the men had a cabin in which they were staying but one night two of them decided to camp by the river to get a good start the next morning. The trout were running and both agreed that early morning fishing was the best. They found a large flat rock on which to build their fire and proceeded to set up camp. As the sun set they sat by their fire and roasted a couple pieces of fish for a late supper.

They were surprised by the sudden appearance of a man at their fireside. The stranger stood just out of good light but they could make out his form and the slouch hat he was wearing. 

"Hello, stranger! Come warm yourself. Care for a piece of fish?" 

The stranger did not move. "You can't camp here. You need to leave, at once!" His voice was raspy and rough, as if not often used.

"Why, it's a free country I reckon!" The younger man bristled and spoke sharply. "I figger we can camp where we want!"

"Boy, I'm telling you, you need to leave. There's a nest of rattlers under that rock where you got your fire. The heat will warm them and soon they'll be swarming out of there. You need to leave, now!" The stranger pointed at the boy with a finger missing its tip. "Go!" His voice roared and echoed against the hills.

The young man was rattled and turned to look at his older companion. "Whaddya think, Pops?" They looked back at the stranger, but he had disappeared into the night like smoke from their fire.

"I dunno, but I don't wanna tangle with no snakes. Let's get out of here. That guy..." The two men did not look at each other as they quickly doused the fire and packed their gear.

Back at the cabin, they told their companions about their visitor. "Never saw that man before but he was one creepy feller, let me tell you. Had part of his index finger missing, and a voice like thunder!"

The other men looked at each other. "Yep, he's been seen before. Can't recollect his name, but people say he camped by the river some years ago, and some days later his body was found, covered in snakebites."

Truth, or legend? I'll leave it to you to decide. I know I will be more watchful around warm rocks. I don't mind snakes, but I'm no fool.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.