Have you experienced something in childhood that was so bizarre you feared nobody would believe you? Yeah, me too. This is my story.
It was the summer when I was 11 years old. A creek flowed through the land where we lived. On the other side of the creek was land owned by relatives. My Dad’s family had lived there for many years, and we all enjoyed doing things together. One particular relative, Great Aunt Letha, and I enjoyed spending time together picking the blackberries that grew at the end of Mom and Dad’s property. They were all tangled up in the fence that separated our property from the neighbor’s. Many happy hours were spent picking those berries. Until the evening one warning from my Dad changed everything.
My Dad saw us taking our usual stroll out to the berry patch. It had been a couple of days to allow more berries to ripen. “You better be careful when you get out there,” Dad said, ” I’ve been seeing a giant snake twisting through the branches of the berries and trees.”
Of course, we thought he was trying to scare us because my Dad was known for pulling pranks. We laughed and asked him to describe it to us. “It’s kind of a medium brown with black markings. Real thick like it’s huge. I think it’s an anaconda”.
Even I, who was terrified of snakes, knew anacondas didn’t live in West Virginia, so I knew Dad was pulling our leg. We went on out to pick berries as usual.
About 10 minutes into picking, we heard rustling in the branches. We didn’t see anything but decided to call it a day.
A few days later, curiosity got the best of Letha and me, so back to the berry patch, we went, half hoping to see something and half scared at the same time. No sooner had we gotten there than we saw the fence start to shake. As we peered into the foliage, a huge snake body was undulating. It was probably 3-4 inches thick, brown with black markings, and very long because we never saw a tail or head. This was obviously the anaconda my Dad had warned us about! We took off running fast as we could. As we went by my Dad’s work building, I swear I heard a giggle.
And that’s the story of my anaconda summer.
