Did I ever tell you just how much I hate snakes?

I went and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull the other day, and I really enjoyed it.   It was just like the old times: Jones in his Fedora, whip at his side, chasing after the bad guys and saving the world from another evil menace.  When the movie was over, I was laughing to myself and my wife asked me why I was chuckling.  I told her that I too, hate snakes.

It was the early 1970’s and I had just entered my teen years.  I was working a lot on the farm, helping do everything from milking the cows to running the tractors in the field.  One summer, we needed to build a scaffold so we could replace the shingles on the roof of the barn, therefore we needed lumber and lots of it.

My father, grandfather, and I went behind the machine shop and looked through our giant pile of lumber.  As you may assume, the wood was stacked so that the bigger lumber was on the bottom and the smaller lighter wood was on the top.  When the large pieces of lumber weighs about 45 pounds, each you cannot simply move them like you would in a giant game of Jenga.  So with my grandfather on one end of the pile and I on the other and my father supervising we began the process of rearranging the wood.

Slowly we worked our way though the pile.  Occasionally a mouse would sprint out from its hiding spot , but we were making progress.  Suddenly we saw something move under one of the pieces of lumber.  My grandfather laughed and I turned to look at him.  Then I saw it: a small black wiggling tail. 

"What was that?" I yelled.  Was it a rat’s tail?  A large earth worm?

“No” my grandfather said, "It was the tail of a snake."

Well how big could that snake be?  "I only saw the tail and it was only about 6 inches long and not very large in diameter so it must be just a little one," I thought.

What my grandfather did not tell me was that he saw the other end of the snake.  The head of this large North American Black snake (non-poisonous) was about 2 inches across and the snake was approximately 4 feet long. 

We moved another piece of wood and that is when it happened, this large black snake seeking out a place to hide decided that the jeans that I was wearing were way too loose and that there was room enough for two.  The snake started to crawl up my leg!  Initially, I thought that this was just a piece of wood brushing against my leg, because it was rough and cold so I paid no attention to the feeling. Then I looked down just to see what board I had bumped, and saw half of a black snake hanging out of my right pant leg!

I screamed and dropped the board that I had been holding.  My grandfather screamed, because the board that I had just let go of landed on his foot.  My father meanwhile was laughed so hard at the antics that he had tripped over some lumber.  I can tell you that I have never in my life taken my pants off so fast!  The snake, seeing daylight, took off towards the machine shop in search of a more secure hiding spot.

Ten years later, the guys and I went to see the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.  We all enjoyed the movie and laughed at how Indiana Jones hated snakes, as well.  When I got home, I went to the barn and set up a rope in the hay mow to swing on it just like Indiana Jones did with his whip.  I would swing from one side of the barn to the other. When my friends heard about the rope they came over and gave it a swing.  If you think like we do, you know that just swinging from one side of the barn to the other is fun, but there has to be a way to make this more fun right?

First, we tried swinging with two guys on the rope and this was fun, but a little awkward.  The we hit upon an idea.  Why don’t we play Indiana Jones? One of us can swing and the other 2 can throw bales of hay at him trying to knock him off of the rope.  I had a lot of experience throwing hay, so I volunteered to go first.  I mean how well can two guys throw 75 pound bales of hay?

I climbed up extra high in the barn for my take-off, jumped out and whoosh!  A bale went flying past me.  When my other buddy tried to throw the bale he fell over.  I thought I was fine, but little did I realize that that little extra boost that I had given myself at the start was now pushing me past my planned  landing zone.

Wham! I hit the side of the barn which knocked the wind right out of me.  I let go of the rope and fell about 10 feet, laughing, and gasping for breath.  We played that game for the next week until one of us actually ended up with a road trip to the hospital to have a concussion addressed.

When we got home from the emergency room that evening, still laughing at the day’s events, we were discussing how to play the game and prevent major injuries when my mother over heard us.  She said that it was great that we were all having such a good time lately playing Indiana Jones, but she was getting worried that the next trip to the hospital might not have such a nice outcome.

Disappearing into the other room she returned with a shopping bag from the local dime store. She handed me the bag and said “Here, try this instead.”

My friends looked at me as I held the bag in my hand.  I thought to myself, "This bag is kind of light to be much fun."

Opening the bag, I discovered that my mom had purchased the videogame Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600.  I looked at the guys and showed them our new prize.  We cheered and immediately left for my buddy's house.  We played the game until our wrists were too sore to hang onto the rope any longer.

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