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Hammond Indiana

Subject	Message	Replies
Discovering snakes - a Mother's Day Tale Date: 05-09-2010 By: Paddy	If you think about it, our memories fall along time lines. Our discoveries are age-related. How could we discover the joys of running until after we had learned to walk? We could not feel the freedom of bicycling before we had mastered the art of balancing, and so on. As each year passed, the more amazing our discoveries became. I cannot give you the exact year that I discovered snakes. I was a kid, after all. Maybe six, maybe eight. At that age, my concept of time was based on events like dinnertime and bedtime. The concept of months and years came along after puberty, but that is another story. My memory of the year that I discovered snakes came back to me because of Mothers Day, of all things. By the time that I came along as the fourth of five children, my mother had learned how to delegate some parenting tasks to my older sisters. But some tasks were reserved to mothers, things like taking me on my first bus ride, discovering the wonders at Goldblatt's department store, etc. One parenting task that she reserved for herself was her garden, which was demarcated from the back lawn by a row of Irises. Beyond that line, she planted (and us kids weeded) a garden that yielded fresh vegetables in the summer with enough left over to be canned for winter meals. She made gardening a pleasurable experience, and it remains so today. Unfortunately, I made one particular year very un-pleasurable for her. That was the year that I discovered snakes. Our house on Beech was one block south of Hoffman. The tract of land between Hoffman and Chicago was swampland, bounded on the east by Catholic Central High School (now Bishop Noll HS) and on the west by Irving Park. For a kid my age in the 1940's, the swamp was a treasure trove. We watched pollywogs grow to frogs and caterpillars become butterflies. And then there were the wriggly things called garter snakes. Having been forewarned by my older male playmates (my sisters would not venture into the swamp), I watched for Black Widow spiders that might be lurking and pits where snakes were waiting to engulf me. I never did see a Black Widow spider, but I did find snakes. Once I learned how to fashion a tool from a forked branch, I quickly became an ace at handling Garter snakes. The baby snakes were quite passive and seemed to be fine with me holding them, so I collected a bunch of them in one of my mother's canning jars and deposited them where I thought they would be happier - in my mother's garden. It turned out that they were very happy to get out of the swamp, so much so that some of them grew to two and three feet long. As I then learned, my Mom and sisters were scared to death of snakes, and my wriggly friends terrorized them as they tended to our garden. Adding to the problem, the snakes expanded their territory beyond the row of Irises and into the back lawn - where Mom hung our clothes. All of a sudden, I had a new chore of hanging out the wash. This is just one memory of growing up in Hammond.	10

Replies

Date	Member	Message
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5534 )	tom w	Paddy; Thanks for that memory. When I was younger, I too discovered that mini-marsh. I saved money and scoured the alleys for paper and junk that I could take to the junkman at Hoffman and Calumet until I had enough money to go to the Army store downtown, next to Karmel Korn and bought a pair of WW1 spats so I could run around the swamp and not worry about wet feet or pants!! Of course they didn't work but I thought they looked cool so I wore them till they wore out! I remember picking up a piece of junk ductwork from behind the sheet metal shop on Hoffman (Bob K's uncle?) and dragging it all the way down too the swamp because I thought it would make a neat boat. When I got there, I discovered two things. One: The water was only about 3 or 4 inches deep and 2:When I climbed into the duct, it collapsed. Oh well. Thats how ya learn, I guess. Tom W
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5537 )	BobK	Before we moved to the north side I used to explore Erie Field (where Eggers School is now) and catch garter snakes. When I would find babies my shirt pocket would be filled with them. I don't recall ever taking them home for Mom. Speaking of spiders, do you remember the BIG black and yellow ones that we called banana spiders? I had one go up my pants leg once in Erie Field and that's the fastest I have ever gotten my pants off. Bob [img]http://home.comcast.net/~rkekeis/Bob1.jpg[/img]
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5540 )	tom w	Wasn't there also one with a teenie violin on its back? I do remember the banana spider. And thousand leggers too. As soon as I got to Florida, I got bit 4 times by a wood scorpion and yep, He got up my pants too. Tom W
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5541 )	BobK	That would be the brown recluse spider or violin spider. My wife's cousin bought a new sofa that was made in GA or the Carolinas that must have had a nest of them in it. She was bitten and treated but she didn't have pest control treat the sofa and was bitten again. We think that is what led to her death. Bob [img]http://home.comcast.net/~rkekeis/Bob1.jpg[/img]
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5542 )	Roger D	Mothers' Day this year was somewhat sad. My mother passed four years ago and dad eight years ago on May 9th.
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5543 )	Paddy	quote: Originally posted by tom w Paddy; Thanks for that memory. When I was younger, I too discovered that mini-marsh. I saved money and scoured the alleys for paper and junk that I could take to the junkman at Hoffman and Calumet until I had enough money to go to the Army store downtown, next to Karmel Korn and bought a pair of WW1 spats so I could run around the swamp and not worry about wet feet or pants!! Of course they didn't work but I thought they looked cool so I wore them till they wore out! I remember picking up a piece of junk ductwork from behind the sheet metal shop on Hoffman (Bob K's uncle?) and dragging it all the way down too the swamp because I thought it would make a neat boat. When I got there, I discovered two things. One: The water was only about 3 or 4 inches deep and 2:When I climbed into the duct, it collapsed. Oh well. Thats how ya learn, I guess. Tom W
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5544 )	Paddy	quote: Originally posted by tom w Paddy; Thanks for that memory. When I was younger, I too discovered that mini-marsh. I saved money and scoured the alleys for paper and junk that I could take to the junk man at Hoffman and Calumet until I had enough money to go to the Army store downtown, next to Carmel Koran and bought a pair of WW1 spats so I could run around the swamp and not worry about wet feet or pants!! Of course they didn't work but I thought they looked cool so I wore them till they wore out! I remember picking up a piece of junk ductwork from behind the sheet metal shop on Hoffman (Bob K's uncle?) and dragging it all the way down too the swamp because I thought it would make a neat boat. When I got there, I discovered two things. One: The water was only about 3 or 4 inches deep and 2:When I climbed into the duct, it collapsed. Oh well. Thats how ya learn, I guess. Tom W Tom: Although I am a bit older, it appears that we were cut from the same cloth. My friend Billy Matthews and I pulled a wagon through the neighborhood alleys to collect empty bottles and metal. We took the bottles to a store on 150th, just west of LaSalle Steel. We hauled the scrap metal to the same junk yard at Hoffman and Calumet. I bought canteens, a backpack, etc. at the same Army Surplus store, and distinctly remember the moldy smell.
05-10-2010 ( Reply#: 5545 )	Paddy	quote: Originally posted by BobK Speaking of spiders, do you remember the BIG black and yellow ones that we called banana spiders? Bob [img]http://home.comcast.net/~rkekeis/Bob1.jpg[/img] I do. The swamp was rife with them, and we had to constantly dodge the webs that they would build across the paths through the swamp. We had our very own "Wild Kingdom" in Hammond. I avoided spider bites as a kid in Hammond, but they caught up with me after I joined the Marines. As a Battalion Scout, I would move ahead of our lines to do what we called "snoop and poop." The term referred to sneaking up on enemy lines by literally (and slowly) crawling on elbows and toes through deep brush without alerting the enemy - and them reporting their positions back to our battalion HQ. Snooping and pooping required crawling through some pretty deep brush, and deep brush contains a lot of spider nests. I know this because I crawled into one. I could not move without giving my position away, but I could feel them on my back. Thankfully, they were not poisonous, and the bite marks eventually faded. It took nearly 20 years to get over the nightmares where spiders dropped from the ceiling of my bedroom.
05-11-2010 ( Reply#: 5546 )	tom w	I apologize if I stired up sad memories and am sorry for your loss Bob, and you too Rodger. I lost my mom, dad and brother too about 13 years ago. There was a fella that got hired on the same day as me. About a month later, he said he got into his pickup truck and was bitten on the knee by a brown recluse. They sent him to Miami to be treated and he was there for several months. When he returned he couldnt work so they made him a foreman! This should be his nineteenth year of doing nothing. I never got bit by a spider but several dogs in the area have sampled me. Six times. Only once by a Capuchin monkey and only had to get rabie shots once. Painful but I learned that if you take a rabie shot in the arm, you can look like Hulk Hogan on one side. LOL Tom W
05-11-2010 ( Reply#: 5556 )	duane	There is no confusing a banana spider with a brown recluse. The brown recluse is a very small and innocent looking spider and yes it does have the violin on it. I was bitten in the leg by one and spent a week in the hospital. It absolutely kills the skin tissue in an area surrounding the bite. They were very concerned about the venom going deeper and also killing the arteries and veins in my leg as well. Fortunately that did not happen. The effects are also systemic, as I was blotchy over my entire body. When I got out of the hospital, I was on crutches for several weeks and the doctor thought that I would need a skin graft on my leg, but fortunately the wound healed over (somewhat). It is now 20 years later and I still have a scar on that leg, but thank the Lord, no other symptoms. About a year after I got bitten, I rolled over in bed and my wife spotted a smashed brown recluse spider on the skin on my back, where I had apparently crushed it while rolling over in my sleep. Needless to say, we had the entire house fumigated that week. Nasty, nasty creatures.