Editorial

On heroes and rattle snakes

Monday, July 7, 2003

Dear Editor:

The pool being closed has been a curse for sure and for certain but there has also been a blessing. At the store I now have the time to hear stories of some real local hero's.

1. An older woman angry at being told she needed surgery got on the Internet and found 19,000 sites on her problem and picked out two. Checked them out with the Better Business boys and spent nearly $50. Now 4 mouths later she is doing fine without surgery.

2. A gentleman having transmission trouble went to The first mechanic who said that it would cost $1,500, so he decided to look around. The second one said that one thousand bucks should do it. He figured why not try one more time as he did not have that kind of money to spend on his old van anyway. The third mechanic, after hearing his trouble, handed the gentleman a can and said that will be $8.00. Now for over 5 months the van has run just fine and he has a new mechanic. 3. Last, is my own story. A master craftsman from Trenton now up in years has been quite sick. I said I would go see him that coming weekend if he had room for me with relatives coming in and out to see him. Without blinking and with eyes of steel, he said, " the day there's not room in my house for you is the day someone else has to leave." In my 50 years, I have never had such an honor said to me as that!

I looked over and the neighbor was limping real bad. I ask him what happened, he told me to come over and I did. He showed me a 30 inch rattler. "The (son of a gun) bit me but I killed him before he bit anyone else. I asked him, "you got out of the hospital the same day?" Being a prideful mountain man he said he used a snake bite kit to get most of the poison out and that was good enough. Sure was swelled up. I told him I'd take him to see a doc. He told me to forget it. That is a harder man than I ever was.

Hope he lives long enough to get old.

Damn rattlers. How long is this state going to let people, pets and livestock get killed or pay for costly doctoring.

I think a bounty is in order. I killed two so far this year. A two-footer and a three-footer. You haven't lived till you watched your pet dog die by a snake bite. Oh, if they are bit in the face most dogs will survive. But a bite in the leg is hard to live cause the blood pumps fast through them.

Guess I ain't going out point hunting for a while or checking my river garden!

ONLY GOOD RATTLER IS A DEAD ONE.

Bill Donze

McCook

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