Sleepy LIttle Southern Rattlesnakes

Mack Hall

Alas that terrorists and foreign oil executives never seem to bother rattlesnakes, a professional courtesy which suggests that vipers of all species recognize each other and perhaps even share a secret handshake. Well, maybe not a handshake.

According to an Associated Press story, rattlesnake roundups are declining. Hmmm – rattlesnake roundups. As fond as I am of cowboy films, I don’t remember John, Roy, Hoppy, Gene, and the boys herding snakes along the Chisholm Trail to Texas. How would they do that? “Slither along, little herpetofauna, sing a-kiyi-fangy-ki-yay?” Think of the classic movies: Fang-fight at the O.K. Corral, Fang of the Barbary Coast, They Died With Their Snakeskin Boots On, Stagecoachwhip, and The Sons of Katie Adder.
Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes, like fire ants and some world leaders, live mostly underground. In rural communities catching these critters and killing them is jolly good sport, just like in Rio Bravo, and rattlesnake rounder-uppers have developed marvelous new ways of snatching serpents out of their dens. Instead of pouring gasoline down a hole and seeing what pops up, modern hunters, Beyond Petroleum, insert plastic tubes and listen for the rattle, and if such a sound is forthcoming then a smaller tube with a hook is inserted (somehow I feel the discomforting words “you may feel a little pressure” are spoken at this point), and the snake is dragged out.

The rattlesnake is then killed and eaten. The convention is that snake tastes like chicken. Since I’ve tried chicken, I’ve no need to sample snake. Perhaps snakes could be made part of the school lunch program: snake tenders, snake fingers, snake-fried snake, and snake ring things.

The skin is made into belts, purses, shoes, boots, wallets, and other fashion accessories for sale to tourists, though I suppose rattlesnake do-rags are not do-able.

The rattlesnake’s skull and bones and rattles are made into trinkets, and I certainly hope to find toys made of rattlesnake remnants for the next niece or nephew for Christmas: “Uncle Mack! Thank you so much for my Barbie Snake House! You’re the greatest!”

These hunts supplement rural economies through their curiosity value, and people really do pay money to stand around and eat snake sandwiches and buy stuffed snakes, and good for them.

Unfortunately, environmentalists are unhappy with rattlesnake hunts, maintaining that rattlesnakes are declining in population everywhere but in Congress. Alas that no one rounds up environmentalists and makes trinkets of them. Anyone who spends any time outdoors from Pennsylvania to California will observe that there is no shortage of rattlesnakes, and that rattlesnakes are not our anthropomorphic friends. Rattlesnakes can kill a healthy adult, and will kill a child.

But then, hey, it’s always open season on children in American now, and no doubt PETA will defend to the death – a baby’s death -- a snake’s right to choose.

If rattlesnakes were to disappear, who would care except the sort of unread sheeplings who wear Che Guevera tee-shirts? The biodiversity argument holds no venom; Ireland has no snakes at all, nor does Newfoundland, and the folks and animals there seem to rich and rewarding lives without the blessings of pit vipers.

The AP writer was doing pretty well until he employed the most over-used cliché’ in Christendom, referring to a small town in Alabama as “sleepy.” But perhaps this is not the scrivener’s fault; he may have been simply following orders and the AP style book. One never reads in the national press of a Southern town as anything but sleepy, so possibly use of the tired metaphor is an edict. Southern towns, according to the form book, are always sleepy, with the court house dozing in a hammock and the grocery store snoozing on the back porch and Main Street fitting itself into its CPAP mask for a good night’s slumber. Middlebury, Vermont, enjoying superior character, never sleeps, nor does Bangor, Maine.

Towns aren’t sleepy, but some unimaginative writers are.

I dare not suggest that anyone reading this excellent newspaper kill rattlesnakes since some sub-species are protected under penalty of law, and goodness knows I would never place the life of a child over that of a reptile; that would be wrong.