The title of this story has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. I was just
listening to an old Ray Charles record and this was one of his songs. His baby
left him and he has not seen hide nor hair of her since she walked out the door.
It is a familiar refrain with Country and Blues songs. However, I got to thinking
about the expression and I used to hear it as a child growing up in North Carolina. For instance, the Sheriff would ask me if I had seen my brother, Edgar,who had broken out of jail or my brother Charles who was AWOL from the Army and that would be my answer. No, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of either one of them.
Since the statute of limitations has probably run by now, I can admit that I
did see Edgar occasionally. He was living in the woods dodging the law and he
would show up at home now and again to get some potatoes and eggs and salt
to go with the squirrels and fish he caught in the woods and streams. Charles
also would show up to say hello and go back hiding from the MP’s. Not many
people saw hide nor hair of those two while they were on the run.
Anyway, the title to this story should be:
FRED, CARL AND THE SNAKE
I used to loaf a lot with my Dad. Dad knew the ways of successful loafing. He pretty much knew what time supper was served at various relatives and friends houses. We didn’t hit the same ones over and over, we sorta rotated. Daddy said why spend so much of your life cooking when so many folks did it regularly. Of course Southern Hospitality and custom required visitors dropping in at suppertime to be invited to have a bite. We took several.
One day we were loafing and we had just reached the bottom of Jim Dick Hill, right across from the Aunt Lissy place (Aunt Lissy was a witch) when Daddy saw a bottle in the ditch. He had extremely good vision. He could shoot a squirrel’s eye out at 300 yards with a 22 rifle. He could see the glint of sunlight off a liquor bottle from some distance. So, He skidded to a stop on the gravel road and told me to get out and get the liquor bottle. Well, I knew not to argue with my Dad or my Grandfather either. Might as well add Mama and Grandma to that list also. At an early age I had wisdom knots on my head from taking too long to mind or pretending that I did not hear the orders.
So, as soon as the old Dodge truck came to a stop, I opened the door and went to the ditch to retrieve the bottle. Why did he want the bottle? Well, my Daddy made corn whiskey and we retrieved empty bottles wherever and whenever we could. My Mama would wash the bottles and we would fill them from gallon jugs and sell them to customers. Anyway, I digress. As I reached the ditch and parted the weeds to get the bottle, a snake coiled close to the bottle struck and bit my leg. I had just gotten hold of the bottle and I yelled quite loudly as the snake sank his or her fangs into my leg. I can’t tell a male from a female snake. Although in high school us guys referred to good looking girls as fine looking snakes. I never figured that one out either but I went along with it. Peer pressure probably. Maybe it was the wiggle in walk. I’ll do a wee bit more research on the subject. Anyway this particular snake bit right through my new denim pants. Daddy came out of the truck to see what was the matter and I told him a snake had bit me. Well, he looked around the ditch and said: I
don’t see no dammed snake. Get the bottle and get back in the truck. Well, as I headed to the truck, I heard Daddy say, well I will be dammed. He came back to the truck holding a snake in his hand. This thing bit me he said. I started to tell him I told you so but I wasn’t ready for another wisdom knot. He tossed the snake to me and said hold this thing. I brushed it off my lap into the floorboard of the old Dodge and put my foot on it.
Daddy stopped up the road a piece and cut some milkweed. He said he would make some tea out of it since it cured snakebites in dogs. I asked him if it worked on people too and he said, I guess we will find out.
When we got back home Mama told us we had better go to the Doctor just in case the
milkweed tea did not work on humans. Well, Daddy not wanting another knowledge bump
also ordered me and the snake back in the truck and we drove to town. Rosman is a small town with only one red-light and one doctor. We stopped at Doc Stokes house and went in. I was a little fearful of Doc Stokes because he had recently pulled a tooth of mine without numbing it since the numbing shot costs a dollar in addition to the dollar the tooth extraction cost. I was shifting my feet around getting ready to pull up my britches leg to show the doctor the fang marks and dreading a possible shot.
Well, Daddy carried the snake in and handed it to Doc Stokes and said this thing bit me and my boy. Doc Stokes took the snake over to a table and turned on a light and stretched the snake out on the table and looked at it through a big microscope. Finally, he turned to my Dad and said: Fred, I’m afraid I can’t do a thing. I hate to give you the bad news but this here
snake is gonna die.
Daddy gave the Doctor a pint of moonshine for his trouble and we returned home. I guess the word got out to the other snakes cause neither my Dad nor I were ever bitten by another snake.
On a side note, Old Dr. Stokes passed away a few years after the snake episode. I was home a few years ago and my old high school coach, Coach Cathy had bought Dr. Stokes office and house and was living there. When I was in high school, my first cousin Willy was a halfback and Coach Cathy called him Lightning. I was a halfback on the JV team and he called me little lightning and later in life, I made white lightning.
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