SNAKES GIVE ME THE SHAKES!

By Marion Kelley Bullock

"Pop!"

One sharp report, but not loud. Still, it sounded ominous, like a gunshot! It came from outside my front door.

My husband, John, and I rushed outside and saw a police car parked across the street. A policeman advanced toward the house two houses down from us, on our side of the street. Gun back in his holster, he brandished a big stick. "Billy club," John said, later. What in the world had our neighbors done?

We watched as he stopped at a patch of grass and struck down with his stick. He then slashed it down on the other side of the sidewalk. Back and forth, back and forth. It was a fight to the death, and the policeman won.

"Bull snake," he told us and our neighbors. "He sure was aggressive."

We've had snake scares all over our neighborhood. A rattlesnake was killed recently at the end of our street, just two houses away, and another one on the next street over. A friend at the edge of town couldn't get his glass front door to open over the mat one morning. He reached down to move the mat. It was a rattlesnake, sluggish from the early morning cool temperature. When it woke up, it fought for all it was worth.

At my Sunday school class party last Thursday evening, we told rattlesnake tales. That night, I fully expected to step on one when I got out of bed. One of my friends confessed to turning on a flashlight before she'd walk across the room in the dark.

Yes, I get the shakes when I think of snakes. I live in West Texas.

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you" (Psalm 56:3)NIV.