Chasing The Tail of My Own Fear of Snakes
I realize that having issues with snakes is quite commonplace, however my issues are complicated by my memories of how people reacted to those snakes after having let us play happily so near to them. While living in the deep south we kids, apparently, were encouraged to swim in and play around some beautiful, yet swampy and entirely snake-infested waters. Why that is, is still a mystery to me now that I am a parent, myself. However at the time we were thrilled to be allowed to play in the wild and all did so, happily, without any harm that I can remember. Occasionally, though, the inappropriateness of choosing a swamp as a playground would strike to our caretakers as problematic, who would then suddenly rectify the situation by becoming quite hysterical and slaughtering the snakes using any manner of tools handy. They would cut the heads off of snakes with shovels and hoes, even guns. The violence of these sudden slaughters were shocking, confusing and quite terrifying. One o