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Random Thoughts: More animal stories

I never did like P.E. classes, whether games, swimming, or just plain exercises. Why didn't I have a teacher like the one I read about. If a student paid him a dollar he was excused from class.

Here is another animal story (snakes are animals, aren't they?). An eight-foot snake got loose in an apartment house and was able to escape searchers for two weeks before she was found. I call her "she" because her name was Betsy and she was a python. They are found in the East Indies. Some of the people living in the apartment house refused to stay there at night. I don't blame them. Who would want to wake up and find a huge snake curled up beside them?

I probably have told you my snake story before but centurions are allowed to repeat their stories many times.

We were living on the farm and a roof on one of the cowsheds was covered with hay. My mother suspected the hens were laying eggs up there. My dad boosted me (a six- or eight-year-old child) up there. I found a nest and just as I reached in to get the eggs I saw a big black snake all circled around the eggs. I jumped off that roof so fast, not caring whether I broke an arm or leg.

Farm children experience lots of scary things. Wild or tame animals often are running loose. Sometimes strange men came by asking for food. That was long before Truman Capote wrote, "In Cold Blood," so we didn't seem to be afraid. My mother might have worried about those strange men but she never let on.

— NORMA HANNAFORD

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