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Hanging over the doorway in the downstairs is a ugly stick about 6 feet
long, it had a brass plate repairing a crack and containing writing,
It's hung there, or somewhere close, for 40 or more years. There is a
fork in the smaller end of about 2-3 inches. It is precious to me, it is
my dad's "Snake Stick"!
My Dad and Mom were finally affluent enough to buy the farm that Daddy
had wanted for years. It wasn't much, the toilet was a brisk walk,
especially in the winter. When the outhouse was replaced with a inside
bath and hot Water it seems as though someone was forever availing
themselves of the New Room! Unlike the door of the old Out-house, the
bath had a latch and doorknob!
The property was about 88 acres divided by a dirt road, half butted up
against Hogback Mountain, the rest was fairly open except for the
hundreds of Cedar trees that were covering the other half! My dad had
not been a farmer since he was a teen-ager and frankly he didn't make a
very good one in the present. The farm was located adjacent to the
properties known well to my dads youth!. I think that's what he
cherished.
He bought a used, steel wheel Farm-All tractor. It was the plaything he
dreamed of. He could wrap a chain around a Cedar tree and hook to the
tractor and worry it until the tree was lying on the ground.
It was a rather steep walk through the woods to Hogback Mountain, a old
falling down house was on the edge of the property and nearly every
weekend Daddy would make the 'Trek'!
Enter the "Snake Stick". Dad always was accompanied in his walks by a
stick, he had dubbed the "Snake Stick. As he would gladly explain to
anyone in earshot what it was!
That was what Daddy was prepared, for catching a Rattlesnake or a
Copperhead. Neither I nor any of my relations or dads pal ever knew of
him catching a Snake but, by damn he was ready!
I claimed the "Snake Stick". One of our "young-uns" cracked it, I fixed
it and attached the brass plate explaining what it was. I made sure it
was high on the wall, Snake Sticks don't come cheap!
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