By Lela Torgesen Wade
Some folks will tell you there are no cottonmouth water moccasins in North Georgia. They claim the winters are too cold here. Don’t you believe it!
When my brother and I were kids we had a swimming hole on our grandpa’s farm. If there’d been enough rain, the water was waist deep for us little shavers.
One sweltering midsummer day a couple of neighbor boys came over on their bikes. We spent maybe 30 minutes toiling up our steep driveway, then coasting back down. Then, drenched with sweat, we decided it was too much like work. We parked the bicycles beside the porch. Mama brought us a pitcher of water. We guzzled it down, discussing what it might not be too hot to do next. Then my brother Chet said, “Hey, let’s go swimming!”
Tommy said, “Our mother won’t let us go to the river by ourselves.”
Dan nodded in agreement, saying, “Yeah, we’d sure get a whoopin’ if we did.”
“No,” I argued, “we got ourselves a swimming hole in the creek.”
The four of us trooped off through the woods. It was so hot the birds weren’t even singing. The path was well-defined because Grandpa kept it cleared of underbrush and fallen trees. He walked it every other day in summer to check on his Angus cattle. They had plenty of grass to eat there, and the creek for drinking and wading in.
Our pool was a few yards uphill from that pasture, and about half a mile from the river. We stripped naked and splashed around a few minutes. That water stayed chilly all summer, so we cooled off quickly. Then we took turns climbing the hill to slide back down into the pool.
My third turn, I guess it was, my hand was inches from a large rock beside the water. I was going to use it as a handhold. Suddenly the other boys were shrieking as though demon possessed. “Snake, snake! Don’t touch that rock, Billy!”
I remember letting myself fall backward and skedaddling for the opposite bank as they waved me on toward them. Then they were slapping me on the back, their faces white despite the heat, but laughing their fool heads off. It took me a minute or so to comprehend what my brother was saying.
“…cottonmouth! It’s not just a water snake. It’s a moccasin. I swear your feet never touched bottom all the way across. You were running on top of the water!”
Our friends backed him up, their heads bobbing wildly in agreement. I knew they were right. We’d spent a lot of time walking and working in the woods and pastures with Grandpa. He was always pointing out things and telling us all about them. And he knew an awful lot about everything.
I turned to study the water’s surface – unmuddied and calm. How on earth?
To this day I can see that snake’s ugly flat head, those beady eyes staring at me. We spent many more hot afternoons swimming there, but never saw another cottonmouth.
Guess they don’t like us either.