Gophersnakes (or why I was a kindergarten drop-out.)

When  I was four, a gophersnake would stretch itself all the way across Arroyo Road (it was still a fire road in those days) and I was terrified to step over it. I did manage to muster up enough bravery once—but when it happened again, I dropped out of kindergarten. I simply wouldn't go. My grandmother relented, and so I was a kindergarten drop out. It was a mile to SF Drake to catch the bus—and I was a very young kindergartner (November birthday) so I often got lost along the way. The road was long, so many distractions.  I remember catching the bus once. A sea of hostile faces and an irate bus driver.



Gophersnakes mimic rattlesnakes, they beat their tails against dry leaves—when they need a human—it's generally their undoing. They're the closest thing we have to boa constrictors. Not poisonous.

We knew the difference and would look at the tail. up = rattler; dowm flat = gophersnake. I remember they weighted a lot and would casually roam all over our bodies when we caught them. We didn't name them Carl, though.

Baby rattlers are much more dangerous that oldsters. One showed up in the corral—searching for water at the trough? The horses knew the difference. Better detectives than humans.

A kid caught a baby rattler in the school playground and held it to his lips, well the rattler did what any good snake would do and  bit him and so he died. (Well, both of them died.)

Only other rattler I met face to face was up our hill—my horse knew when school was out and head for the hills at 3 pm; I'd have to go catch her. A rattler was coiled on the path, tail up, rattling, and I leapt backward, blindly out int space—it was a very steep hill. When I finally pried myself out of the bushes, he was gone.