Of Car Hoods and Water Moccasins

When we were boys growing up in north Louisiana, my younger brother, Bruce, and I, together with my cousin, Joey Nolan, spent a lot of time in the woods playing and exploring. Sometimes we might spend a few hours shooting baskets at Joey's house before loading our pockets with pork cracklings and heading off to the woods. In our play, we would sometimes roam over a several mile area, crossing creeks and scouting out possible squirrel hunting spots.

One day we came upon a small pond in the woods. This pond was an instant fascination for us because playing in water was always a welcome thing to do in the summer time. We walked up to the edge of the pond and immediately noticed a strange thing. The water was filled with snakes. Their heads and bodies were constantly popping up all over the surface of the pond. We got cautious real fast as we watched the snakes swimming all over the pond. They were water moccasins. We could tell by their color (dark olive to blackish), and by their short, thick bodies. Some of them were thicker than our arms.

In those days, we boys were always catching snakes and playing with them, but I have to say I have always had a fear of "cottonmouths," as we called water moccasins. When these snakes opened their mouths, they were kind of white inside. They had an evil look about them that sent chills up and down my spine. I didn't mind catching a rattlesnake or even a coral snake, which is deadly poison, but I would not catch a cottonmouth. I remember catching a rat snake one day which promptly bit me, but it didn't hurt much. And a grass snake also bit me, but they are small, harmless snakes that we boys played with occasionally. I didn't take the same chances with a poisonous snake that I did with the harmless ones; you can bet on that. I might have been a bit dumb back then, but I wasn't stupid.

Well, we began to explore the area around that pond and over in a tangle of vines we found an old car hood. It looked like it was probably from the '40s. It was large and long and looked a lot like a boat. It didn't take us boys long to make the connection with the pond and see if we could make a boat out of that old hood. The front end of the hood was already shaped like a boat, but the other end would take some work. We headed back to Joey's house to get a hammer and a crow bar to help shape the hood so it would float in the pond.

While we were at Joey's house, we refilled our pockets with cracklings. These cracklings were stored in a large, wooden barrel in their barn. They were packed in salt. They weren't fresh or crisp at all -- in fact they were rather tough -- so you had to chew on them and let them get softer before you could swallow them. I guess you could say they were a lot like salty, good-tasting leather. All I know is I loved them and enjoyed the whole process of eating them.

Back at the pond, we got busy with the hammer and crow bar. Pretty soon we thought we had ourselves a fairly decent boat. All we needed to do was to launch her and see how she floated. We all grabbed hold and lifted the old car-hood boat and placed it in the water. Voila! The car hood floated! We boys were really excited. Now, all we had to do was decide who would be the first to go out in our "new boat."

Truth be told, no one was all that anxious to be the first sailor in that old car hood. It looked kind of tippy and you could tell by the way it sat in the water it was probably unsteady. Finally, Bruce said he would go out in her. He found a long sapling to use as a pole to control the boat, and Joey and I held the boat steady while Bruce got in. The boat was tippy. Bruce could hardly keep it upright in the water. He had to sit on the front end of the hood to keep water from coming in the back. In fact, with Bruce in the front of the boat, the back end stuck up in the air. It's a good thing that hood was as deep as it was since the edge of the front end was just an inch or so above the water.

Bruce poled around in her for a while. The moccasins were still active in the water. And we were having the time of our lives. We each took turns in the boat and, finally, Bruce and Joey went out in her together. This was much more difficult since each boy moved independently of the other and they were constantly just barely avoiding disaster. Without poles to keep the boat upright, it wouldn't have worked at all. It didn't take long to realize that two boys in the boat at once was one too many.

After a couple of hours of playing around in that pond, we decided to head back to Joey's house for some iced tea. On the way to Joey's house we were walking across one of his dad's pastures when, all of a sudden, Joey yelled and took off running to his house.

"What's the matter, Joey?" I called to him.

"Rattlesnake!" he yelled, as he continued to run.

When Bruce and I got to Joey's house, they were already getting in their car to take Joey to the doctor. He had been bitten on the leg by a rattlesnake. Joey was in the hospital for several days. And that was the last time we boys played in that pond. I still wonder what ever became of that old car hood?

Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.

Editorial on 12/23/2015