Snakes and Dadders

The great white hunter

In preparation for submitting my jobs blog for publication at Kindle Digital Publishing (link coming soon!), I visited Buffi in Vallejo to look through some old phamily photo albums to harvest some good images for the book. Upon seeing the picture at the top of this post, I asked, "Why did Dad have a gun?", to which Buffi said, "Because... he had a gun."

A simple answer to a silly-sounding question. The reason I asked it is because I had never seen any guns around the house, nor do I recall my father ever mentioning any interest in firearms or hunting. The picture was taken a few years before I came on the scene. Buffi then told me a remarkable story.

Our family lived in various areas of California -- mostly around the Los Angeles area, Sacramento, and the rural north state. Dad always enjoyed hikes, and we kids enjoyed going on them with him. Not because we necessarily enjoyed his company, but kids usually want to be included in things their parents do, and also he tended to yell at us less when he was enjoying himself.

So he had that rifle ostensibly to protect my siblings from such threats as coyotes, mountain lions, and other dangerous wildlife. I also think his trigger finger was itching to shoot something, without having to go to the trouble of obtaining a hunting permit.

The story goes that on one hike, Dad and the sibs happened upon a rattlesnake next to the trail. Rather than just keeping their distance and going their separate way from the serpent, Dad decided that this "threat" needed to be dealt with by meting out some good old-fashioned frontier justice. He told the kids to head up the trail to a "safe" distance while he dispatched the menace. He then put the barrel of the rifle (which I believe she said was a .22 caliber) right up close to the snake's head. Admittedly, a snake is pretty hard to hit, especially with anything other than a shotgun, but c'mon! Obviously, I didn't get my natural sharpshooting skills from Dad.

I am told that a rattle snake can strike up to two-thirds of its body length, so even if that snake was just a three-footer, it could easily have bridged the distance between the end of the barrel and Dad. I can't help but think that the snake must have been coiled and shaking its rattles like crazy.

So Dad fired, and simultaneously the snake dove down a hole. He wasn't sure if he had actually hit it, so he proceeded to stop up the hole with rocks, because that always works with snakes.

I later had my own experience with Dad and a rattlesnake. The sibs had long since moved out on their own, so it was just me and a now-unarmed Dad against nature, red in tooth and claw. I can't help but wonder if, upon hearing of the attempted assassination and subsequent Cask of Amontillado-ing of the snake, Mom made her husband give up firearms.

Dad and I were hiking somewhere. As I recall it, I was a few yards behind Dad. Suddenly, I saw a rattlesnake within striking distance of me. Perhaps it was rattling, which caused me to notice it. I froze in terror, but I managed to scream for Dad. He came back, and somehow we were able to get away without harm to any parties. But when Dad related the story later, he said the snake was right next to him, and it was I who alerted him to the danger. I don't know how I would have seen it, since I distinctly recall being several feet to the rear. I guess since he had been emasculated by not having a handy weapon, he had to make his part of the story seem more important. I guess we'll never know what really happened that day.

This post is actually supposed to be about what a fuck-up Dad was, but while we're on the subject of snakes, I would like to relay my own battle with a ferocious reptile.

It was when I worked as a wooden utility pole inspection and treatment foreman -- which you can read all about over on the jobs blog, or soon to be available wherever fine Kindle digital and print books are sold.

My crew and I were working a line of poles in the arid lands east of Reno, Nevada, along the Truckee River. My digger Art and I had walked ahead of our treater Cory, who was still preparing the tools and materials of his trade at the truck. We were crossing a plain of rocks and sagebrush. It was a windy day. As we approached our first pole, we became aware of a buzzing sound ahead of us. Sometimes the tops of old poles become kind of frayed, resembling Bart Simpson's hair. When the wind blows over and through these fissures in the wood, it makes a buzzing sound. We assumed that's what we were hearing, and proceeded on our quest. Suddenly the buzzing became much louder. We realized it was a rattlesnake, and a big one by the sound of it. We immediately turned tail and ran at top speed back whence we came.

Cory by then was following us with his wares, and was surprised to see us charging in his direction. When we stopped and explained why were running, Cory (who was Black) said, "I've never seen White people move that fast!"

We began throwing rocks towards where we had last heard the snake. We hoped to be able to encourage it to move away from its spot between us and the pole. We couldn't see it, but one of my missiles apparently was a direct hit. A furious hissing and buzzing ensued, and a sage bush began shaking violently. I don't know if I had dealt it a mortal wound, and it was in its death throes, or if it was just injured and angry and lashing out at anything near it. Eventually the sound and the fury abated, but we didn't bother to confirm any possible kill. Instead we treated the pole (and all the other ones in the area) as quickly as we could, with at least one person keeping a lookout for more snakes when not otherwise busy.

Back to the business at hand. Buffi told me another story that convinced me that Dad was a major doofus. He was always headstrong and stubborn. He liked to "do his own thing", and didn't like to be told what to do by others. I think this overweening independent trait is what lead him into some of his more boneheaded misadventures.

Mom had a lifelong friend named Jean Wynn. Jean's husband Bill was a successful dentist in Concord, California. The Wynns owned a motorboat. When I was a toddler, our families were enjoying a day of swimming and boating at a place called Steamboat Slough on the Sacramento River. Bill, Dad, and the sibs were out in the boat. At one point, Dad stood up and moved from one side of the boat to the other, which caused everyone, including Bill the driver, to spill into the water. The boat kept going in circles. There was a very real danger that it might run over one or more of them. Mom witnessed this incident from the shore, and was so frightened that she peed herself.

On one pass, Bill was able to grab the boat and pull himself aboard and bring it under control. No one was injured. Mom was wearing a bathing suit, so she just had to rinse herself off in the water.

I have a feeling that there is a good chance that Bill had told everyone not to stand up in the boat while it was in motion, but Dad being Dad, he didn't heed that advice.

Those stories made me reflect about how Dad always acted like he was SO good at things, and his way was superior to any other person's. Everyone makes mistakes, but he could have killed or injured himself or one the sibs with a ricochet in the snake incident, or gotten one or more of the boating party chopped into fish bait. So it was gratifying in a horrible kind of way to hear what an absolute dumb shit he was at times.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.