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It was August, 1977 when I
first moved to the beautiful countryside of Wilbraham,
Massachusetts. I spent most of my life growing up in the big
city of Springfield. My family of three was young and had
anticipated the move for three years. In Springfield, the homes
I lived in, both before and after my marriage, were quaint
little houses with fenced in, small backyards, endless
sidewalks with squirrels and birds being the wildest of animals
sighted. I was not aware of the sensitivity to and the impact
of such a change in location was on my psyche.
Soon after I arrived in my
wood-lined, brook-side, large-acred Oakland Street home, I
realized that a heavy duty, sit down mower was going to be
needed to handle all the grass that seemed to out shine the
size of the house. I quickly learned how to operate this
machinery to help my husband get the job done that soon came to
be a two hour stint. One day was driving the mower in the
backyard when all of a sudden a thin, green snake came
squiggling toward me. Thank goodness I had my feet above
ground. I couldn’t stop the tractor fast enough and continued
driving right over the little critter. As I turned around to
see the ultimate demise of the squirmy little rascal, I was
shockingly surprised to see the snake wiggle off in two pieces,
in two different directions. As fast as it appeared, raising my
adrenaline, it disappeared. I was in shock. But it wasn’t to be
the last time I saw a little green or brown snake. They
appeared often in the window wells, around the bricks, and in
the stone wall. I never even thought about snakes before moving
to Timothy Merrick territory. He is the boy who was bitten by a
snake on Oakland Street and died when he wasn’t treated in
time. That was back in the 1800’s as the song “On Springfield
Mountain” bellowed to young children back in the 1950’s, 60’s
and 70’s.
Soon thereafter, I would
encounter a large, scary, black and white striped snake sunning
himself on the stones that circled the rock garden outside my
back door. I was petrified one day when I came out onto the
porch that leads to the rock garden and found yet another
shocking surprise. This new visitor sat curled upon a rock with
his head toward the sun. I jumped back as my surprise turned
into fright. I ran to the garage and grabbed a shovel hoping to
poke at the unwanted visitor to scare him off. He scared me
more, because as I poked, he hissed and snapped at me. He
didn’t like being disturbed. I didn’t like his presence. It was
too close for comfort and too close to the back door where by
then my small children played. I continued to poke, but it was
wasted energy. He stayed! He hissed! He defied me! I gave up,
threw the shovel at him, screamed and ran into the house. I
hoped for rain, thinking that it would make him go away. I kept
checking on him through the window. He stayed there for two
more hours and then totally vanished, never to be seen again.
Thank goodness!!!!!!!
As time passed, I started
fearing the presence of snakes everywhere. But he hardest thing
for me was to descend into the basement to do the wash. I
became fearful that one day I would open the lid of the washing
machine and I would find a swirling array of little green and
brown garden snakes, trying desperately to get out, and I would
slam the lid and run back upstairs. This fear was fired by the
repeated dreams I would have about this premonition. It
happened quite often. It wasn’t until I moved out of that house
and closer to the center of town that the nightmare finally
stopped. I lived in the house on Oakland Street for 12 years
and saw enough snakes to last a lifetime.
Now, in the 11 years I’ve
lived in the house on Brookmont Drive I have seen only one
snake. It was large. It was brown and yellow. And it was
crushed kin the middle of the road. Knock on wood, I hope I
never, ever see another free-wheeling, gut-wrenching snake in
Wilbraham again!!!! And so far I haven’t. Snakes have been
replaced by the herd of deer and wild turkeys parading across
my lawn every morning and evening.
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