Eye to Eye

One of my favorite adventures and pastimes when I was a young boy was to be asked to do something with my big brother Alvin. Every young boy like me needed a hero in his life. Well, Alvin was that hero I looked up to. And when he asked if I wanted to do something with him, I was in hog heaven.

One rainy day in the wintertime in the early 1930s--about January 1933--he asked me if I wanted to go fishing in the Chiltipin Creek that flowed through the woods where we lived east of Sinton. Boy, that would be fun! Since the water hole was too far to walk on a cold and rainy day, he said we would ride our horses. He had a saddle for his horse but we did not have a saddle for my horse. He rigged a rope-saddle. A rope-saddle is just a long rope that is passed around the horse's belly several times. I mounted the horse and passed my legs through the rope. I could have ridden the horse bare-back but Alvin wanted to race to the fishing hole. We raced our horses and of course he won the race. I was holding on to the horse's mane for dear life. I couldn't make my horse go any faster. By the time we got to the fishing hole my legs and ankles were rope-burned.

So we started fishing. I don't know if there were any perch in that hole but we sure tried to catch some. After fishing for hours it seemed, I got tired and sleepy. Alvin suggested that I move up the bank a little and lie down and take a nap, which I did.

After a while he called to me, "Ralph, open your eyes and don't MOVE a muscle." Was I ever scared and startled when I opened my eyes and looked into the eyes of a water moccasin. Man, I was petrified. Have you ever looked into the cat-like eyes of a poisonous cottonmouth snake? Alvin kept trying to assure me that the snake was as scared of me as I was of it. No way was I convinced of that. I think I didn't breathe at all. I just lay there thinking that darned snake was going to bite me any minute. After looking at me eye to eye the snake must have decided I was just too big to swallow, so it wiggled away.

Am I scared of snakes? You're darned right I am. I learned a good lesson that day. Most snakes are scared of humans, so be still when you encounter one and wait for the snake to wiggle away.

By the way, it was a long time before I ever wanted to go fishing again.

Ralph Bodemann
Aransas Pass, Texas
Published: November 14, 2005

Related Handbook of Texas Online articles

	CHILTIPIN CREEK
	SINTON, TX
	MOCCASINS

Other My Texas stories by this author

	A Sticky Memory
	That Fluffy Stuff
	No More Bull
	Boys Will Be Boys