The Pond

On a typical summer day in East Texas it is very hot with a humidity factor near 100 per cent.  This kind of heat makes you seek relief in any way possible.

We had a livestock pond in the woods behind our house.  It was small but spring fed and cool in the summer. It was also surrounded by trees which provided extra cooling.  My two brothers and I would swim and cool off there quite often on a long hot summer day.

It was on one of these occasions that the "snake incident" occurred.  We were no strangers to snakes in East Texas.  They were fairly common.  They came in both poisonous and non-poisonous varieties.  Being near a pond the most likely type of snake to see was a water moccasin.

We had a tube from a rear tractor tire to use as a float.  Because of the large size of the tube, it required two to three of us to balance it so it wouldn't flip. As we were riding it one day, I was facing the south end of the pond where all the undergrowth and bushes were located.  A movement caught my eye which I quickly recognized as the classic figure "s" pattern of a snake swimming toward us.

My adrenalin was flowing as I yelled, "Snake!" Immediately, I was alone on the giant tube as it began to flip towards me.  The next moment I was thrown underwater and the tube was directly above me.  As I came up, I was inside the inner circle of the tube with no view of the pond in any direction.  If it were possible for a person to run on water, I am sure that I would have.

When I was finally able to get clear of the tube, I could see the snake still headed in my direction.  Running faster than I ever had, I got my .22 and some cartridges from the house and ran back to the pond.  By then the snake had decided to exit the water.  He was climbing through the brush as I fired at him, but as the bushes continued to move I realized I had missed.  He lived to see another day.

My life had flashed before my eyes as I fell into the pond backwards and fought to get out of the water.  We went back to swim at the pond many times after that day, but I never rode the tube that I couldn't control and we always looked towards the brushy end of the pond before swimming.