I went to an elementary school with a huge playground.
I bet we had over an acre in which we could play, and I must confess that I certain part of me longs to be on that playground again.
It was a time before I knew what bullies were.
It was a time in which grasshoppers could be caught among the poison ivy, and the resulting welts were worth all the fun
There were days, though, when we couldn’t play on the grass. During the winter months, we spent our recesses inside, and when a heavy rain came in the spring and fall, we were confined to a concrete pad in front of the school.
Oh, how I hated the concrete pad! There was nothing to do there.
Play hopscotch? Jump jump-rope?
I don’t think so!
I would often sit back and stare out into the playground. I would long to be out in the grass, and I’d hope that during the next recess, we’d be out there.
Concrete just isn’t that fun.
One day toward the end of the year, we found ourselves confined to the concrete for another reason. The guy who had been contracted to mow the grounds had missed a week, and he was trying to catch it up that day.
No one knew when he’d show up, so it was decided to make us stay on the concrete, just in case he wanted to start working during the recess.
To say the least, we were not impressed with this development.
The grass was a bit taller than normal, but as we looked out over the playground, we saw nothing wrong with it.
That is, until one of my classmates shouted “Look there’s a snake!”
Gliding through the tall grass came a black rat snakes– a relatively large specimen.
Like a black ribbon animated by some incantation, the snake slithered its way across grounds.
“Good thing we wasn’t out there today,” said a classmate. “Satan woulda got us!”
“What?” was my only response.
“You don’t see Satan moving through the grass over there?”
I replied, “That’s a snake.”
“Well, my preacher told us that the snake is Satan upon this earth, and when you see one, that’s Satan.”
Another chimed in, “Yeah, that’s the devil going along on his belly! Let’s kill it!”
I was taken aback.
I had gone to both Methodist and Episcopal churches all my life up until that point. I’d never heard anything so ridiculous.
After all I had caught dozens of garter and ringneck snakes. They were harmless.
They weren’t warm and cuddly, but they were still pretty cool from my perspective.
This event took place toward the end of my time in second grade, and it was at that time that I began to doubt the legitimacy of churches as places that provided accurate information.
It also always troubled me that the local tradition was always to kill every black rat snake. If a snake was seen, someone either tried to stone it to death or chop it up with a shovel or a hoe. I’ve known people to drive out of their lanes to run over a snake.
But I’ve never known a black rat snake to do anything to anybody.
It’s just a big, black snake, and it’s about as dangerous to humans as an opossum or a rabbit.
But somewhere our ancestral primate aversion to snakes got mixed up with religion, and now people want to kill them for no good reason.
It’s really quite sad.
I understand why people want to control venomous snakes near their homes, but one really cannot justify killing a black rat snake.
It’s just simple prejudice.
I love snakes got garter and black rat snakes in my yard and woods.
I enjoy getting pictures of them and posting them. Sadly I also get hate comments from people it’s sad. :(
A shiba breeder posted Kill him on a picture of a garter snake..
Really all you have to say on the picture is kill him? Why would I even do that.
I can understand venomous as they can really hurt someone, but a harmless snake like garter?
My Aunt’s husband killed a garter snake their song was telling the story of his brave dad taking the shovel and killing it.
I gave him a piece of my mind and told them to not ever talk about this in front of me.
I mean they know I have two corn snakes and like snakes..
It really sickens me people are so scared of such snakes, but they act so mean to the snake themselves. They eat pests like mice and rats!
I accidentally hit a rat snake with lawn mower I freaked out and was so sad over it. :(
I’m always going slow and looking ahead and stopping to move a snake into the woods if I see it.
Same for turtles.
This one was a baby not a big adult rat snake so it was much harder to see. :(
I think all life is precious and I just don’t understand how religious people have such hatred over a simple snake.
I’m glad I didn’t have this issue in school.. My teacher even let me bring my first corn snake into class to give a talk about snakes. Kids got to see one and pet it if they wanted to.
I also got my first experience talking to a group about a animal I like.
I told difference between oviparous and viviparous and what they eat and difference between no venomous and venomous snakes.
Brave killing a garter snake? It’s about the equivalent of bragging about killing a vole in how innocuous and harmless the animal is. I use to have one as a pet in my teens and they are rather cute as snakes go. They’re so little and delicate looking with some prettily patterned subspecies. The thing is that some people, once they find out you keep an animal that they don’t consider a proper pet, they really do get a kick out of regaling you with stories and photos like that when they know they will offend and upset you. Believe me, I’ve heard it all about my two bunnies from the pie jokes to them being stupid pets only fit for kids. Then they get all uncomfortable when you either don’t find it funny or beat them to the punchline.
I found a beautiful sunglow morph corn snake in the road a few years ago. Knowing it was someone’s escaped pet (I’m in England) I picked up the limp snake and brought it home rather than having any urge to splat it with a spade. I thought he/she had got too cold and a couple of hours in a box half on a heating pad would revive it, but sadly it was not to be. Shame as I’d have kept it if I couldn’t find it’s owner.
I prefer monitor lizards and, if I recall correctly, they are more closely related to snakes than to other extant reptiles.
I love snakes & turtles, and have had several as pets over the years. Also like lizards but don’t care to keep them as pets; they’re quite a bit more labor-intensive than are snakes & turtles :-).
My grandmother would kill any snake she saw, which makes me kind of sad now. I was terrified of them all, when I was little. But, I never heard anything about the devil in connection with that. (Nothing that wasn’t metaphorical, in general, but that would be in a mostly Methodist family.) I didn’t know anybody was using that as an excuse. Yikes.
My grandmother – and nearly everyone in her generation – also believed that snakes are the tool of the Devil. Even though she loved garter snakes, black snakes, green snakes, house snakes, etc.,all the nonvenomous native snakes, she still quite literally believed that. She didn’t think that the Devil was necessarily in every snake; but she did think that every snake had the potential to be the Devil incarnate.
My grandmother was a precious person. Despite her very old-fashioned beliefs, she was very tolerant and accepting. She was the one person I can say that I never heard anyone, ever, speak against. She passed away Nov. 17, having lived to the age of 98 1/2 years. I miss her very much.
I used to have Burmese python that I named Gisela. A few years ago, and elderly man who lived down the road from us was beaten and robbed in a home invasion. I told Nanny that if she ever saw someone at the door that she didn’t know, sh could take Gisela out of her cage and the people would be afraid of the snake – as so many people are – and leave Nanny alone. She chuckled gently and said “Honey, I believe I’d rather be beaten up and robbed than to put my hands on that snake”.
They used to kill every venomous snake they came across, but left nonvenomous snakes alone, realizing their value in rodent control. I can somewhat understand why they killed venomous snakes in the old days; after all, that was before there were any doctors here, let alone any hospitals. Long before the days of antivenin. Plus there was that superstitious fear of snakes that was pretty much universal. Most people very literally believed Bible stories in those days. What I can’t understand is why people still kill every snake they see. Ignorance, I suppose.
A lot of people, especially women, never get over the fear of snakes and certain insects. I even have a near neighbour who remains afraid of birds even though she is now in her sixties. Some totally urbanised people in London are so scared of foxes in their gardens they hire someone to shoot them. (At least few people in this country have a gun handy, which is a small mercy).
Personally I immediately got over any fear of snakes which in this country comprise only three species all of modest size and rather handsome.
Incidentally, when children in the playground convinced me that father christmas was fictitious was the time I also stopped believing in tooth fairies and god. It was an early release from all that nonsense and part of growing up. So one asks oneself from this perspective – surely 80 million people in Egypt are not about to accept and islamic dictatorship after all they have been through together in recent months.
Is fear of snakes inherent or learned ?
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5080/scared-snakes-this-could-be-why