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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Where to Find Small
Rattlesnakes</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">by</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Leonard Tuchyner</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal
align=center><o:p><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">Walking barefoot in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></st1:place> may be hazardous to your health. I
discovered that when I was seventeen years old.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Having been raised in <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Irvington</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">New
Jersey</st1:State></st1:place>, the only times I ever walked around barefooted
was when I was at a lake, river, seashore or pool. Sand was always an
opportunity to experience the freedom of shoeless toes, all-in-all a wonderful
sensation. So when I moved to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">St.
Petersburg</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></st1:place>, in
1958 and was confronted with a plethora of sand, I was in barefoot
heaven.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">No matter where I lived, it was always an opportunity for
exploration. I didn’t know I was slowly going blind when I was seventeen, except
that when I drove a car at night, I noticed I wasn’t seeing a lot of things I
should have been seeing. So I told people I was night blind, but I really didn’t
mean it. It just helped me to explain to my father why the front bumper of the
family car was a little closer to the chassis than it used to be. “I’m night
blind, you know. I didn’t notice the concrete marker in front of the parking
space.”</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">He didn’t believe me, of course. But what could he say?
He had his heart set on buying a new used car and needed me to be the inheritor
of the old <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Plymouth</st1:place></st1:City>. If he told my Mom that I was blind,
she certainly wouldn’t allow him to allow me to drive a car, and then he
wouldn’t be able to buy the Ford he had all ready purchased in his mind. So it
all worked out in my favor. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">Since I was not (really) blind, it didn’t occur to me
that I might not see things in the daylight that maybe it would be better if I
did see. I might, for instance, step on things with my bare feet I oughtn’t to
have stepped on. That would include dog scat, broken glass, sharp stones, fire
ant colonies and poison jellyfish lying just above the surf line.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">I had a lot of time to myself in the first summer of my
arrival at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">St.
Petersburg</st1:place></st1:City>, because having just arrived there and knowing
no one, I had a limited number of friends. Limited translates to none. With all
that time to myself, I was free to pursue my hobbies of exploration. <st1:place
w:st="on">St.</st1:place> Pete, in 1958, was nothing like it is today.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was undeveloped, relative to where I
came from. One of the things it did have was pathways into open spaces that
stretched beyond my visual horizons. So off I would go, taking my unclad feet
with me, into the wilderness. I made some wonderful discoveries. For example, I
found the wreckage of an entire wooden boat, about sixteen feet long. Those were
the days of wooden vessels. I never ran into plastic ones like they have today.
It was the kind of boat upon which you attached a motor on the very end.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s called the stern. Unsurprisingly,
the motor was missing, and the transom was rotted out. But it had a wonderful
ornament on its front. It looked a lot like the hood ornament of a
car.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">I discovered that it is best to stick to a pathway when
walking unshod. We didn’t have cacti in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">New Jersey</st1:place></st1:State>, so I wasn’t prepared for low-lying
spikes that messed up naked feet when given the opportunity. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">In <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Irvington</st1:City></st1:place>, I never ran across any snakes except
garter snakes which we found under rocks. It never occurred to me or any other
boy I knew that they were capable of biting. It’s not unexpected then that I
wasn’t looking out for snakes when on my excursions. That’s perfectly
reasonable, is it not? </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman">In any case, I learned about venomous snakes on one
particular day while waltzing around the out-back. On that occasion I heard an
interesting sound. It was a sound resembling the noise that dry seeds make when
shaken in a dried up bean-pod.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was a muted rattle.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I was in the
close proximity of a snake that rattles its tail. Well, you are wrong. I was
smack dab in the middle of a whole mess of these little fellers, many of them
within a foot or two of my vulnerable feet, not to mention unprotected shins. It
didn’t take me long to recognize what they were. They were very small
rattlesnakes. I think they call them pygmy rattlesnakes. I’d seen enough Western
movies to know that you did not want to be fanged by one of those things.
</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">There was no way out. I was surrounded by what seemed at
the time to be a galaxy of writhing death. I didn’t have time to think, thank
goodness. If I did, my feet would have remained frozen to the ground and those
little guys would have had no choice but to strike, just to prove they
could.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I didn’t have time to
consider that my chances of picking my way through that mess without stepping on
most of them were highly improbable. I wouldn’t have told myself ‘you cannot
walk on air’. Suddenly, my unreliable eyes saw the world with clarity worthy of
an eagle, and I took off like a bat out of hell, finding spaces where they did
not exist, and doing so with a mind that had gone to another dimension. Somehow,
I transported to a place of safety, beyond striking distance of those pygmy
rattlers. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to be
frightened.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I stood there near the
edge of their nest, wondering how it came to be that I was standing at the edge
of a swarm of rattlesnakes with whom I’d been in intimate proximity a moment
earlier.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">You might think this ended my career as a wilderness
scout. It did not. I just did it with high-top sneakers from that day forward.
</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">This was just another story I never told my
parents.</FONT></P></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>