The Snake

In 1963, when I was in first grade, we had an unwelcome visitor to our home. My mother was in the kitchen cleaning after she’d put us kids to bed, and my father was in the living room watching television. My mother said she heard my father say, “Carol, bring me an axe.” 

This was years before Stephen King wrote The Shining and Jack Nicholson creeped everyone out with his performance of the axe wielding crazed husband, so my mother peeked around the corner into the living room to see why a weapon was being requested. There was a snake in the house, coiled around the arm of my little wooden rocking chair. Instead of bringing an axe, she called the next door neighbor. Daddy and the man from next door wrangled the snake into a large glass jar with holes punched into the metal lid. 

The mystery of where the snake came from was solved when it was learned that the pet store on the next block had some snakes escape. Our wooden front door screen was warped at the bottom and the front door was open on this hot August evening. To quote my mother’s written account of the incident in a letter to her family, “That snake just came right in, without even knocking.” 

All these years later, I’m confused by why the boa constrictor was not returned to the pet store, but rather given to my then 10-year old uncle, Steve. Also, what happened to the other escaped snakes? 

In my mother’s letter she continues, “Steve has been wanting a pet snake all summer, so now he has his wish. He picks the snake up and lets it crawl and coil around his hand, arms, and around his neck. One night Steve was playing with the snake and watching T.V. - mostly watching T.V. Well the next thing they knew, the snake was gone and Mother, Sam, and Steve looked all over the den for it. Finally they found the ‘varmint’ hiding behind that big brass plate on the den wall.” 

This was just the first of many snake escapades experienced by my grandmother, aunts, and uncles during the years the snake lived with them.

There is an undated clipping from the local newspaper with the headline: Pet Boa Pops From Hiding. The article states, “A pet boa constrictor, lost for four weeks, tumbled out of hiding Wednesday, much to the astonishment of the Lewis Owen family, 3502 46th St. The two-foot-long snake owned by Steven Owen became lost about a month ago following a trip to Steven’s school, Christ the King. Wednesday Steven opened the door of the family car and the missing snake tumbled to the ground. Mrs. Owen, a teacher at Christ the King, said her son’s pet became lost when they were taking it home from school after showing it to Steven’s class.” 

What the article doesn’t say is that “showing it to Steven’s class” really means they took the snake to school to show his classmates how the snake was fed. I know this because once my entire Brownie Girl Scout troop met at my grandmother’s house to watch as a mouse was dropped into the dry aquarium home of the snake, as the snake froze, then struck the mouse with enough force to stun the poor little thing before it was devoured whole. The horrified Brownies watched as a bulge, that was the mouse, slowly made its way along the snake’s body. There is no telling how many girls were scarred for life on that afternoon. 

Another detail left out of the newspaper article is that during the month that the snake was living free in the car, my Aunt Gail was married to a Park Avenue New Yorker in a lavish Lubbock wedding. Many guests were ferried from the airport, to venues, and to hotels via this very car. My great Aunt Opal, a very genteel lady, would have run all the way home to Canton, Texas had the snake decided to show itself while she was a passenger. Just the thought of prissy Aunt Opal in close proximity to a snake has been enough to send me or any one of my family members into paroxysms of laughter over the last sixty-years. 

My Aunt Gail was only slightly less squeamish about reptiles. A tale told on her was about her brothers, my uncles Sam and Steve, wrapping the snake around the front door handle and then telling Gail the snake was loose and missing in the house. Gail went berserk and ran out of the house, through the front door, grabbing the snake in the process. One of Gail’s sisters, my Aunt Mary said, “When she realized she had grabbed the snake, her life as she knew it was over. As I was coming home from school she was on the front lawn screaming, running and jumping and pulling on her hair.” 

As you can tell, we had a lot of fun having a pet snake at my grandmother’s house. When school was in session my grandmother kept the snake in a terrarium in her second-grade classroom at Christ the King School. Over the years I have met many of her former students who commented on what an interesting classroom my grandmother kept. Sadly, classrooms such as hers are a thing of the past. 

During summer vacations and holidays the snake came home. Every year the rocks holding down the lid of the terrarium got larger as the snake got bigger. Eventually the snake was too big to be contained. After many Houdini-esque escapes and recaptures, my grandmother gave the snake away. She said she was afraid it would eat one of her grandchildren. 

I have many memories of my grandmother and her home on 46th Street. The snake and the antics of my aunts and uncles are all part of a beautiful tapestry that made up my childhood.