Vintage

I Have a Snake

by

Dorothy Graham Gast

I was in Miss Pauline Nabors’s tenth grade English class at Tuscaloosa County High School in 1952.  We were studying 18th century poetry and she’d given the class a poem to read for discussion. As we read silently, the door to the classroom opened and Doyle Fleenor, a twelfth grader, walked toward Miss Pauline's desk.

When he passed my desk I glanced at him and saw a snake wrapped around his forearm. Witnesses say that I screamed, jumped out of my seat, and ran out of the classroom, down the hall turning right at the library.  I then turned left past the principal, Col. Peteson's office, down the sidewalk and through the gate before someone caught me.

I remember nothing after the glance at the snake.  I do know it took a long time to quiet me and longer to persuade me to return to that classroom.  Few people were brave enough to mention it to me.

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Mama said that when I was beginning to walk, we lived in a duplex with a family that had a retarded son who liked to catch snakes and throw them on people. I was a victim more than once as a toddler. When I became a teacher, I learned to control my reactions if not my fear.

My son, David caught snakes to make belts. One day driving on Highway 82 past Indian Hills Country Club in Tuscaloosa County, I was startled to hear my niece scream and pull her feet up on the seat. I skidded to a stop in front of a service station.

There was a head and 6 inches of a snake reaching from the car heater. Our screams drew a crowd of the workers and customers while we jumped around and pointed. The offending creature had returned to hiding. Volunteers were poking tools and arguing about the best way to get the snake out while debating the possibility that it was poisonous.

David happened to pass, saw the car and knew instantly what had happened. He pulled up, came over to the car reached behind the heater and pulled out a 4 foot chicken snake he had captured a few days before and left in a tow sack in the trunk only to find the sack empty when he looked for it. It was a long time before he was allowed to borrow my car again.

It is midnight, hope I don't dream of snakes.  

Dorothy Graham Gast

Written: December 2009