There’s no doubt about it. I got some repenting to do. Surprisingly this story doesn’t start back on Flamingo Street. Rather it starts in our own backyard — right about the same time I turned over a rock. What slithered out from underneath was a flood of memories, a life lesson, and this story.
While growing up at 110 Flamingo Street, my three brothers, The Sister and I went to church most every Sunday. I say “most” because there were a couple of times I was so sick that struggling to get out of bed and trying to dress in the Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes was just too much. Guess being honest, and I want to or I’ll have to repent that also, on those occasions I really wasn’t sick at all.
Every Sunday I heard Preacher Jim’s sermon while sitting in the second pew of the First Presbyterian Church. He said repenting is good for one’s soul. But before you can start down the road of redemption, you must first proclaim the transgression you are repenting from. Mine comes in the form of a snake.
Preacher Jim talked of all kinds of transgressions, most of which I never even heard of. But a few that I had: lying, stealing, and pulling on The Sister’s pigtails. We all thought that was fun. Not lying or stealing — pulling on pigtails. But Preacher Jim said it was a transgression so we had to stop. He also said we had to admit we were truly sorry before we could start the walk down the road of redemption.
As a kid, that road called redemption he always talked about I never found. Guess the road didn’t run through Flamingo Street. But it did run through our backyard last weekend.
I finally saw it about the same time that rock was overturned and we found Mr. Snake waiting underneath. I said, “we,” because Little One and Sweet Caroline were standing right next to their Big Papa.
What happened next even surprised me. But first my snake transgression from a long, long time ago on a street not so far away, or should I say transgressions? After all, there is more than one.
First: the stick incident when I turned 7 years old. On a warm June day a 4-foot-long snake stretched across Flamingo Street right in front of our house. My three brothers thought the snake was dead so they double-dog-dared me to poke it with a stick.
I did. That’s when we all found out it was just sunning itself on the warm road. I chased the snake into the woods with that stick while trying to beat it all the way. Sunning itself or not, I now know beating a snake with a stick is wrong.
Second: Stretch the baby boa. Twin Brother Mark kept Stretch in a large aquarium with a light directly above it. I got tired of the light being on all night so I cut it off. Stretch caught a cold and died within a week. Seems snakes need a warm environment to stay healthy.
I never admitted to Mark that it was me who turned off the light. That’s been 50 years ago and I still feel bad about that. Stretch the snake, not Mark.
Finally: Dad and the giant black snake named Fang. One Sunday afternoon when I was 11, I found Dad asleep on the living room couch. I snuck into Older Brother Richard’s room and stole Fang. Fang was the 6-foot-long rubber snake Richard had won at the county fair.
I thought it was a great idea to throw Fang on Dad. It wasn’t.
I learned two things that day. It wasn’t a good idea and, for a large man, Dad could really move fast. I now know throwing fake snakes on folks that are deathly afraid of them is a really bad thing to do.
The walk in our backyard with our two granddaughters came to a sudden end and the education began when the basketball-size rock was turned over and a baby king snake was found. I picked up the snake to let the girls get a closer look. To my surprise, they weren’t frightened at all — just the opposite.
The girls huddled next to each other as I started showing them the black scales on the snake’s back, the yellow rings around it’s body, the yellow colored belly, and of course its tongue. I explained how they smell with their tongue, and eat rodents to help keep their populations under control. They were spellbound to see how the snake moved without feet.
Their eyes grew even wider when I said snakes could also swim and even climb trees. But the most important lesson I shared with them was that they should never harm one. Snakes are an extremely important part of the ecosystem. They finally even touched him and said, “Night, night, snake,” as I gently placed the little king snake safely under the rock.
Walking back to the house listening to the girls talk on and on about the king snake, guess I finally found what preacher Jim spoke about so many years ago: the road to redemption. And it runs straight through our backyard.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
