The first one happened on Second Street in Jackson, Ga. My siblings and I went outside to play and noticed our cat was staring at something, and she was acting like she was hypnotized. As we started toward her, the trash men who had stopped to collect from our can, told us to get back as they ran toward … a huge snake. They were able to kill the creature who seemed ready to dine on our feline. I had no idea snakes could capture a cat’s attention so completely.
My next snake memory happened after we’d moved to Indian Springs Street, still in Jackson. My neighbor and best friend, Jeanette Waits and I would go swimming together. Well one day we decided to have a race, in the pond behind all the swings and slides at Indian Springs State park. We piled our clothes and shoes on top of the towels and waded into the water. Once we were in the deeper area, we waited a moment, then counted down from 10 and took off for our morning competition. As we neared the other side of the pond, we both happened to look over at each other at exactly the same time, and there was a water moccasin swimming right between us! I think that is the fastest I have ever swam as we tried to outrace our competitor in the cool blue water.
I used to swim in Jackson Lake while my parents fished, and I still remember accidently bringing a snake in with the fish I’d just netted. Naturally I dumped my net’s contents out and the fish got away too.
I still remember glancing down at my car hood on the way back from a trip to the mall and seeing a snake draped across the bottom of my windshield. I pulled off the road at the first wide intersection, blew my horn, and waited while the creature decided to leave my 65 Chevelle. I had been at a mall in Decatur and I still wonder if someone slipped the snake onto my vehicle or maybe it was already there when I left home.
When they were building the new bank for SunTrust/nee Trust Company Bank, some of us were there when the vault was being prepared. Suddenly one of the workers screamed … as he saw a huge snake coiled inside the building. Several of them decided to remove the invader and together with their tools, they were able to get the big creature outside. One of them got out a tape measure and we learned the massive snake was four feet plus a couple of inches. I still wonder how it made its way into the vault area, and after that we would keep the front door closed, an inconvenience for those bringing in supplies, but a necessity after the fear we’d all felt.
Recently I was listening to the radio and DJ Don told about pythons invading the Everglades and how they were dining on all the creatures there. This is beginning to cause a lack of the normal animals visitors were used to seeing in that wildlife park. I learned that pythons are actually from South Asia and not originally from Florida. There is a suspicion that people had them as pets and then decided to deposit them far away from home. I find it sad that these hungry snakes have devoured lots of the owls, birds, turtles, and other occupants of the Everglades. Of course that will harm the ecology and make for more bugs that would have been eaten by the ones who have all gone away, via the pythons. These are more problems for us to pray over and find solutions.
