This Saturday, April 30, let’s go to Dogwood Park behind the History Museum between 10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Storytellers will entertain us with tales of their growing-up years, travels, and their friends and families.
If I’ve learned anything writing this column, it’s that everyone has stories. Like the time Husband left town for a four-day golf trip and a trampoline was delivered and nine-year-old Son found a snake. It was harmless garter snake, the size of a yellow #2 pencil and a bit longer than an unsharpened one, but I put on Husband’s work gloves to handle it.
Daughter, age 11, wasn’t happy that Son and I punched holes in a metal screw-on lid and put Garter in a quart canning jar so Son could take it to school the next day. (The teacher had agreed a little snake would be welcome.) Daughter thought Garter should’ve been left crawling in the weeds near our backyard creek and Son thought Garter should sleep in his room. We left it inside the jar on the kitchen table.
The next morning Son, Daughter, and I walked into the kitchen about the same time. The jar was empty, except for grasses. We searched, but we didn’t find Garter before school that Friday morning. All during my teaching work day, I was eager to get home, find the snake, put it outside, and enjoy a calm weekend. But that wasn’t to be.
When we arrived home, three huge cardboard boxes blocked our front door. I pretended I didn’t know what was in the boxes and thought when Husband got home, he could unpack those boxes and set up the trampoline.
After a thorough search, Garter wasn’t found. Daughter and Son were disappointed so, in a moment of insanity, I suggested we look inside the boxes. Long metal poles. Heavy metal coiled springs. Black mesh fabric. Lugging all of that to the backyard was a chore.
Daughter, Son, and I applauded ourselves when a metal circle frame stood stable on level ground. The children hooked the springs to the frame and laid the fabric on the ground inside the frame. We began connecting the springs from the frame to the fabric and all went well, until the last few springs because the fabric tension was tight.
I cut my finger on the sharp end of a spring and sent Son to the house to get the work gloves I’d left on the kitchen table. We made a plan: Daughter and Son would pull the fabric and I’d pull on the spring to hook it into the metal ring attached in the fabric.
I put on the gloves, grabbed the spring and said, “Ready, set, pulllll——oh, oh, oh, s***!” My children dropped the fabric and stared at me. In a shrill voice, I slowly screamed, “I’m okay. The snake just crawled up my arm.” Garter was returned to its outdoor home. The trampoline was set-up. Daughter and Son jumped and flipped and somersaulted. And I knew this would be an all-time favorite family story.
Filed under: Family, Games | Tagged: snake, storytelling, trampoline |
Susan Writes 
Fabulous story. I knew the snake must reappear. But interesting how it all wove together with the gloves. Excellent!
LikeLike
I first wrote this for mining your memories and it was about 1500 words – not this 500 words like here.
LikeLike
Reminds me of when grandson’s Python snake got out of it’s cage in basement. I looked everything over high and low when I starting going down the basement steps, and if I opened a box, pulled anything out from the wall for over a year. We never did see it again and after a year, we decided it must have got outside and froze to death the first winter. I hate that it did, but relief that it was probably 90% chance it was gone for good was welcomed. That boy loved snakes ☹️
LikeLike
Like you I would have wanted to find that snake!
LikeLike