YLee Franklin

July 28, 2003

My grandfather, God bless his soul, is crazy.

You want proof? Take this incident that happened one day in early summer when I was about six years old as an example.

My mother had driven me over to visit with my grandparents that morning. Well, probably she just wanted to visit with grandma herself. Which was exactly what she did. A child gets very bored hearing about people she doesn’t know doing things she could care less about.

I was making a nuisance of myself while they were drinking coffee and trying to visit. My grandpa came in, saw the situation, and offered me the chance to go out with him to the field while he checked on some cattle.

Of course, I jumped at the offer. Riding in a truck bouncing over a gopher infested field while watching mangy cows and trying to see over the dash is a LOT more fun than sitting inside bugging Mom and looking at kitchen floor tiles. Plus, Grandpa’s crazy. You never know what kind of jokes, stories, or ideas he might come up with.

We headed out and I was having a lot of fun seeing how high I would bounce when we went over a bump, when Grandpa saw something in the woods. He stopped the truck and told me to wait for a moment. I waited while he went into the trees and wandered around a bit. It’s a good thing he’s a little over six foot tall and built like a football player. I could always see where he was.

When he came back, he grabbed something - an axe - out of the back of the truck and said he was going to be busy for a bit. So I sat back on the bench seat and looked outside. I counted gophers, but that didn’t last too long because I couldn’t count very high. I went up on my knees on the seat. I laid back flat on it like a bed, but it was too hot so I sat back up. Needless to say, I was starting to get bored again and wanted something to happen.

I should have stuck with bored.

When he came back, he had a grin on his face. Leaning against the door, he told me that he had something he wanted to show me. I couldn’t help grinning back.

As we trotted off into the trees, I noticed Grandpa chuckling to himself. That should have been a warning, but I was more than a little naive.

When we reached Grandpa’s discovery, I was both fascinated and creeped out. He had found a snake’s nest and had been busy killing all of them before they could get too close to the house or could scare the cattle. I was fascinated because, well, snakes are fascinating things. They move without legs, which is hypnotizing; they have the most incredible, smooth, dry scales, and they can swallow their food whole. I was creeped out by the thought that there might be a live one around. Of course, Grandpa had made sure it was safe before he brought me out, but still . . .

Very solemn, now, he informed me that Grandma would be so sorry she missed this. Oh, wait, he had an idea! I needed to take two snakes back to Grandma and Mom and show them what we found!

That sounded like a good idea to me, if he was sure they would want to see them? And they were totally dead?

Oh, he assured me, headless snakes couldn’t be any more dead. And my mom was just as fascinated with snakes as I was.

Like I said, I was a little naive.

I really should have known, when he was being so serious in his explanation. And the twinkle in his eyes should REALLY have given him away.

But it didn’t and I let Grandpa wrap the tails of two snakes around my forefingers. Strangely enough, the snake’s tails curled around my fingers very easily and held on with little help from me.

So, off I set: snake bodies swaying from my index fingers, arms held out as far away from my body as possible (because, ewww, what if something dripped?!), and me trotting along, a sturdy little figure humming with the joy of being a kid with no school that day. We hadn’t gone far from the house when we had stopped the truck so it was only a short distance back.

Now, everything might have gone as Grandpa had thought it should if not for the fact that I had just learned that an earthworm, after being cut in two, regenerated into two earthworms. Also, as far as I was concerned, snakes and earthworms were related. Neither had legs; they had to be.

And - I didn’t know; did you at six? - a snake with its head cut off still twitches with involuntary reactions.

Picture it: a little girl in jeans, trotting along, arms held out far in front of her, snakes hanging from her fingers, when she comes to a dead halt, and suddenly pulls her hands closer for a better look.

Those tails moved! I mean, I thought those tails moved. But they weren’t moving while I watched, so I took off again, but with a little less bounce.

And then it happened again. But it didn’t do it after I stopped so it might have just been the movements of my walk that made it look like the tails moved.

I started walking again, sliding my feet in the sand of the road, a lot more cautious about those tricky snakes and watching to see if their heads looked like they were growing back yet.

The tails moved. And didn’t when I stopped.

This time, I wasn’t going anywhere. I focused on those tails and I was not going to look any place else and I was not moving. I was going to find out if it was my walking that made those snakes tails twitch.

So, I stood there.

And stood.

And stood.

Just when I was sure that it had been my walking, they moved.

That was enough for me. Screaming, I started hopping up and down, waving my arms and trying to get those snakes to let GO of my fingers before they grew new heads! The snakes went flying through the air and I went flying for the safety of the house.

I ran into the kitchen, babbling about snakes and earthworms and heads and things that bite when they’re mad and how if you killed something, it would probably be mad, right? Once my Mom and Grandma had ascertained that I wasn’t bit, stung, or otherwise hurt, they made me calm down and explain what had happened.

For some reason, when I got to the part about Grandpa telling me to take the snakes to show them because they would be sorry they missed it, my grandmother got a strange look on her face and said “Oh, really?” with an edge to her voice that I didn’t think fit her. She was small and delicate and my Grandma, for goodness sakes! She shouldn’t sound dangerous!

Once they assured me that snake’s heads do not grow back (that took awhile, too), I offered to go and get them. Mom and Grandma both guaranteed me it would be better if the snakes were left outside.

I headed outside and checked how far the snakes had managed to move with no head (I could see in the sand) and eagerly reported my findings back to them, but they weren’t that interested.

Grandpa didn’t come back from his short trip to the field until supper, many hours later.

Hey, I said he’s crazy, not stupid!