Skip and the Garder Snake

Skip and the Gardner Snake

All my life I have had a fascination with animals. Any kind and nothing I brought home surprised my mother. I even brought home a massasauga rattler but that is another story.

In the spring of the year the snakes have their babies. Common Gardner Snakes are no exception. They are born live but are in a transparent membrane, which they soon find their way out of.

In the spring, soon after the first warm rays of the sun melt the ice on the ponds, the toads start their spring rituals, laying their eggs in the shallows of the swamps and the snakes find some secret spot to give birth to their young.

These little snakes are identical to the adults but only 5 or 6 inches long. Cute little guys.

I had a ritual every spring too. I would go catch a bunch of them. There was no reason to do this except I was a normal boy. I would take a big boiler tub my mother had and throw some grass and a little water in it and toss in the little snakes. I would then go try to find some food for them, which was hard in the early spring as the crickets had not come out yet. I would sometimes catch the big snakes too but found that they would eat the little ones. The biggest I ever say was over three feet long.

We lived in a basement house at the time. It must have been about 1948 as my youngest brother Skip was about three. I was born in 1939 and My mother was still in the hospital after having my brother Gary on December 7th and she was in the hospital after having my brother Skip the day the war was over.

As I said, we lived in a basement house, which was rather common back then. I should say they were not rare. My parents built the basement, with my mother and uncle digging the basement with a stone float and an old car a dragging it, while my father was away, driving truck.

The kitchen was in the northeast corner of the basement and there was a small basement window on the east side. My tub of snakes was outside the house, near the window.

My mother was in the kitchen and Skip was out in the yard playing. In those days it was not considered to be a horrible parent if your kid was not on a leash.

My mother was doing her kitchen work, with the little window open. She heard little Skip say, "Royal's nake, Royal's nake" My mother yelled out and said for him to get away from My snakes. He just kept giggling and saying, "Royal's nake, mine got Royal's nake!"

My mother knew I would be upset if Skip turned my snakes loose so she wiped her hands and trudged to the stairs.

She went up them and outside. She went around the corner, expecting Skip to be in the tub but he was setting a little away from it with the biggest dang Gardner Snake she had ever seen. I guess he had it by the middle and it was a squirming all over the place trying to get away. She said it was 18 or 20 ft long but I suspect it was more like 3 ft.

She screamed bloody murder and my dad came a running, he had been outside somewhere. He almost crapped as he was terrified of snakes. I was dang lucky I was able to keep the babies around.

He was not about to touch the thing and headed for a shovel to kill the thing.

I heard the commotion and came a running, as a little 8 year old will. I saw what was up and thought it was neat! Now I had a big snake but at the same time I saw my dad coming with the shovel and he had murder in his eyes.

I ran to Skip and grabbed the snake from him. I took off a running with it and headed to the swamp, with my dad still a yelling something, I don't know what. I am sure he was not saying, "Come here and let me pet it"

I got to the swamp and just turned it loose. I do not believe in killing snakes and never did.

By the time I got home things had settled down and they were laughing about it.