Snakes Are Our Friends

I promised a picture of the escaped (or more likely dumped) python that I saw a few years ago. And after looking at every. single. photo. in our collection, I finally found it -- hooray!


Here's the story in case anyone is interested. We only live a few miles from the Trinity River and often use "the back roads" to get out to the highway. One of the roads runs about parallel to the river about 100 yards from it. There are soybean fields on one side of the road and the woods next to the Trinity on the other and one lone farmhouse. One balmy May day, I was driving home from work and drove up on something lying on the edge of the road. After saying, "What the hell is THAT?" I realized that it was a very large snake. I just happened to have the 35 mm camera in the car, so I stopped, reversed and rolled down my window to take a photo. All this time, Mr. (or Ms.) Snake hadn't moved so I got out, walked carefully to about ten feet from it and took the shot attached above. Then I decided to go around in front of him since he still hadn't moved. (I was careful, Mom, I swear.) About the time I walked in front of him (still about ten feet away), he slowly raised his head, gave me a baleful stare as if to say "you had to go and ruin the good thing I had going here, didn't you" and slithered off back into the trees and presumably down to the river.

I told that story many times after the fact and the most common question I was asked was, "Did you run it over?" To which I would always say, "No, I wouldn't have dreamed of doing that." It was a beautiful snake and I figured he had as much right to be alive as I did. Everyone repeat after me: Snakes are our friends. They eat vermin. I shall not kill them unless they are poisonous and about to bite me.