Across the street and down a few houses, one of our neighbors had what I thought was the best place on the street. Their house sat way back from the street and they had a long blacktop driveway that curved a little as it met the garage which was under the house. Their yard was slightly rolling, which made it more fun for young boys.
Behind their house a winding creek found its way through trees and over rocks. This was a favorite swimming spot for neighborhood kids and many times there would be a dozen or more boys and girls splashing around in the creek while a few cautious mothers watched to see that no one drowned or got hurt.
One of the frightening things about this place for a seven year old boy was the blood suckers. Occasionally, someone would get a few on their feet or legs and before all their blood got sucked out, a mother or friend would have to pull them off. Whether they were really blood suckers or just some snails didn’t matter. The thought that they were draining your blood while you splashed in the creek, made the creek a dangerous place.
If we walked along the creek a few hundred feet to the west, it became very shallow, about ankle deep. We would sometimes spend a little time catching “crabs” (crayfish) and trying not to get caught in their pincers. The little ones were easiest to catch and the big two inch “crabs” were fiesty and challenging. I’m not sure what we did with them after we caught them. Maybe we pulled their pincers off – probably not. Or maybe we gave them to someone who would use them as bait when they went fishing. Possibly. I think we probably played with them for a while and set them free most of the time.
One summer there was a tremendous amount of excitement at our neighbor’s house. Someone had found a very large snapping turtle and the older neighborhood boys were trying to get it into a barrel. Eventually, they were successful and we all took turns looking at what was the biggest turtle I had ever seen. He wasn’t happy about being in the barrel and would bite anything that got within reach of his sharp mouth. When I went back a day or two later to look at the turtle again, I learned he had been made into soup.
Another pasttime we enjoyed was catching snakes. As a neighborhood full of boys it didn’t take us long to acquire a large quantity of snakes. They were kept in boxes at a house across the street from ours, and ranges in size from not much bigger than a worm, to scary big. One snake in particular was found in the tall weeds one day and several of us were put in charge of holding a burlap bag open while my brother, Randy, attempted to put a large black snake into it. The snake appeared to be as big around as my forearm, and every time Randy tried to insert it into the burlap bag, it would raise its head and look at one of us holding the bag, which naturally caused that person to let go of the bag and run a few steps away to avoid being bitten by the snake. After several unsuccessful tries we finally managed to get the snake in the bag and added it to the others.
It seems like it was only a few days later that we moved away from that neighborhood, so I don’t know whatever became of all those snakes.
