(HA on me! It’s Mangum, not magnum. But now I can’t do the Dirty Harry part, so I’m going to pretend I didn’t realize my mistake.)

This morning I saw one of the Bayou Billy mugs that we have picked up over the years at the Apple Festival here in Kendallville; I prefer the Cherry Wine flavor, although I have branched out to try lemonade and grape. I thought I’d just check the site and see make certain they would be coming this year – and  check if they might be at the county fair.  So, here I am, scrolling down the calendar when I see Waynoka Snake Hunt. Nooooooooo! I have already given myself nightmares by stumbling on the Waurika Snake Hunt event.

For some reason, on this rattlesnake site, there is a picture of a python or anaconda . . . but since you know it is a rattlesnake site and you are thinking that way, when you first glance at the picture of that huge snake, you stop breathing. Of course, you start again because it’s only a picture and part of your mind is yelling, “not a rattlesnake, not a rattlesnake, not a rattlesnake.” Not a cool visual experience. I quickly clicked on the “About” page and saw this photo:

Bayou Billy . . . what are you doing to me?

BUT WAIT.

Bayou Billy’s calendar also shows this event: Mangum Snake Hunt. These folks (Shortgrass Rattlesnake Association) have been doing this since 1966. And the picture on the main page is not a python. It is this one and it totally scares me.

They do have a nice, informative site and I found this phrase in the history section: “when snakes begin to slither out from their dens.”  I don’t know . . .  I think I would want Dirty Harry with me . . . with his Magnum, you know, the 44 one. The most powerful handgun one.

Bayou Billy apparently has a special brew for these events – Wild West Soda.  Maybe they add whiskey and snakebite anti-venom.

I do see that they are going to be at a marshmallow festival in Ligonier, Indiana . . . that seems more my speed.

Here are the thoughts first brought about by the Waurika Round-up:

Actually, I don’t know if I would feel compelled to go if I lived close enough . . . When I was little and we would go to a zoo, I always wanted to visit the reptiles first. Was that because I was so frightened of them I wanted to get it over or because I wanted to look at something which could freeze me with terror.

I think the fact that they don’t have legs bothers me the most – the fast, fast slithering and the head and upper body being able to spring forward in the blink of an eye. I guess arms on a human could snap forward and punch me in the nose pretty fast, but I don’t think about that for some reason.

I can’t remember not knowing about the Rudyard Kipling stories of cobras and the days of ropes that could be pulled to summon servants and a murderer putting a poisonous shake through the hole in the wall so it could crawl down the rope and bite a sleeping person. See, I am upset enough to write run-on sentences again.

When my grandfather was farming and they cut and baled hay, my uncle said there would always be a rattler in one of the bails . . . that was his least favorite job on the farm – helping with the hay bales. Rattlesnakes are scarce here now – although a hundred years ago when my grandmother moved into a house by a lake, the family discovered a snake nest in the cellar. One big snake crawled up into a wall and stuck his head out a hole in that wall. My grandmother used a broom to keep hitting it back until someone came, got a shotgun and blew its head off. Wait a minute – they fired a shotgun in the house? That seems odd. Well, desperate times lead to desperate measures, I suppose.

Maybe I would be drawn to the festival as I am sometimes drawn to watch scary movies. I might have to duct tape myself to a wall for that weekend to keep me from going. Yet, I live in an old house with a fruit cellar – what if a snake gnawed a hole in the wall right where I was taped? Oh, Lordy!

Now I am thinking that these Oklahomans just go out around where they live and find these snakes for the roundup. So for me, if I lived there, every day would be snake day. I would buy a shotgun, maybe two . . . and wear boots . . . and not sit in the grass.

I am a wimp . . . or Indiana Jonesette – Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes? I hate snakes!

Now, gummy worms . . . they’re pretty cool.