Ribbon Snakes
It rains often in [Old Ocean]. Sometimes it rains a lot. A whole lot! It was during one of the latter times that we kids were alone in the house. It was afternoon, but it was dark and stormy. The wind blew. Rain came down in sheets, in buckets, in huge amounts. This went on for seemingly hours. Perhaps I was home alone. I don’t remember. What I do remember is that I lay on the top bunk reading comic books when Mother and Pop got home. My educational endeavors came to a sudden and shocking end as Pop dragged me off the bunk and was spanking me soundly before I even hit the floor. I had no earthly idea why. Pop was quick to let me know that as I lay there with my comic books, I didn’t think to check the windows to keep the rain from coming in. Their bed was soaked to its limit, and they had to spend that night sleeping on the hard floor. I think that was the most deserved spanking I ever had, and I certainly learned a lasting lesson from it.
After one such rain, the ditches surrounding each block of houses was filled with water. That’s what the ditches were there for, to catch the runoff. Ribbon snakes lived in those ditches, and when the water was high, the snakes came out in droves. One day I took my BB gun and killed over a hundred snakes. Pop got angry at me for doing it, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, until the next day when they began to stink. Then I understood.