Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, I guess I could have been classified as your typical "city kid". I was in my teens before I was ever introduced to a world called "the country" and became aware of wild animals that made strange noises in the night and vicious insects that bored into your skin and hauled away your blood. This is not to say that I was totally ignorant of a place where grass grew and there were certain animals that could chew that grass until it became the milk, which they gave to the milkman who in turn delivered it to my doorstep. I read books and I watched television----we didn't have a set, but our neighbors did. They allowed me to come over for two hours twice a week to watch The Cisco Kid and Hoppalong Cassidy.
Along with my parents and seven brothers and sisters, I lived in the first floor apartment of a three-story brownstone. Our front door opened directly onto the sidewalk---no porch, no steps.
One of the things I remember best about my city life was that we lived just a few blocks from the Mississippi River and along with several other kids from the neighborhood, that is where most of my free time was spent. Every Saturday we were on the boat docks shortly after dawn waiting for the handouts that inevitably arrived with the crews of the huge iron barges that went up and down the river daily our favorite being the banana boats. We stuffed ourselves with the over-ripe fruit and went home with bellyaches.
Playing in the streets was another favorite pastime especially in summer when the fire department came around and opened the fire hydrants. The cool water gushed out, filling the street and banking up against the curbs.
Wading and splashing in the murky water, I never once entertained the fear of snakes and snapping turtles. My only fear was my mother seeing the stains on my clothes and the filth in my hair---a fear that didn't raise its ugly head until well after the fact.
*****
I was fourteen years old when I went to spend two weeks on my grandparent's farm. The farm was located a few miles south of Poplar Bluff in an area affectionately called Rattlesnake Ridge. Naturally, tall tales abounded of snakes big enough to bite the face off your hunting dog and too big to fit down into a six-inch stovepipe!
Now whether or not there were snakes that big, I didn't know, but there were snakes. And my grandmother could attest that they did bite. She had been bitten twice while working in her flowerbeds. Grandmother was a tough little lady and was left only with a fading memory of the two incidents and the less than fading scars where Granddad had cut open the wounds to let the poison flow out.
Staying with my Grandparents was all right, but I was a kid and being a kid I became more than a little bored after the first two days there. Then I discovered I had cousins---a boy just older and a girl just younger than myself---living about ten miles down the dirt road that ran past my grandparents' house. They had stopped by with my aunt and uncle on their way back home from town one day. It took us all of five minutes to decide that I would just have to go spend the night with them.
The one night extended to encompass the remainder of my two-week stay in the country. I felt bad about leaving my grandparents, but kids tend to gravitate toward other kids that's nature.
For the first time in my life I drank cool-aid with no sugar---and loved it. I used an out door toilet with the great black hole that housed incredibly (I was sure) huge spiders just waiting to pounce on my bare bottom. Thank God for chamber pots for there was no way I was stepping out the back door after dark on a mission to answer nature's call! Night noises in the country are something best dealt with behind closed doors---with several lamps shining.
My Uncle owned and operated a sawmill which he, my aunt, and my two cousins worked diligently together. I worked alongside my cousins, helping to stack the long strips of bark that my uncle deftly sliced away from the logs as they were pulled into the huge saw blade.
It was almost noon on Friday when my aunt told my cousin Sharon to take me and go to the house and kill a chicken to cook for supper. She said to catch the old black rooster with the long tail feathers since he was so old he couldn't possibly live much longer anyway. She told us to put him in a pot to cook with dumplings because he would be too tough to fry.
*****
Now, you would think that killing a poor helpless chicken would be about the easiest thing a person could do but there must be a trick to it, because easy is not a word I would have used to describe my first encounter with preparing a chicken dinner from scratch.
With Sharon sneaking up on him from one side and me slowly moving in from another, we had talked to him soothingly. I know he was listening because he kept cocking his head to one side and looking at me with one eye, then the other. If I got too close, however, he had high-stepped away with his wings held out from his body as though prepared for flight. I wasn't fooled by his proud stance because Sharon had told me that chickens couldn't fly.
We had finally cornered him against a fence and I pounced on him before he could plan his next move. When the dust had settled I had come up with empty arms. From a dust-caked face I looked around for the errant fowl while Sharon laughed at my face and clothes. Ok. Just a minor set back. Looking around the yard we found the rooster trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible in the middle of a flock of hens.
This time we decided that a straightforward frontal attack would be the best course of action. Without hesitation we ran through the flock, scattering chickens and grabbing for the rooster while he was still confused by all the commotion. Again he eluded our grasp and disappeared around the corner of the porch, headed for the front yard.
We found him again strutting and jerkily tossing his cockscomb from side to side as he endeavored to stay one step ahead of us. We would stop and he would stop. We took one step he took two, turning his head from side to side to look back at us.
Whack! I nearly jumped out of my skin! Sharon had cracked the poor rooster's skull with a long thin strip of wood. The rooster dropped to ground without a flutter. After recovering from my initial shock, I patted Sharon on the back and profusely congratulated her on her quick thinking and even quicker reflexes.
Our joy, however, was short lived. Leaning to one side as though the earth had tilted on its axis, the rooster was on the move again. With dust fogging from his feathers, he headed toward the barn with its wide open doors.
"If he gets into the barn, we'll never find him in all that junk!" Sharon shouted as we entered the race again.
Being older and longer-legged than Sharon, I was soon close on the rooster's tail. And just before he entered the barn, I made a footballer's dive for the contrary bird. When the dust cleared again, I picked myself up and dusted myself off with the tail feathers that I had gripped tightly in my fingers.
Sad to say---they were attached to nothing.
*****
We had bowed our heads that night over our plates as Aunt Fern said grace and thanked our Lord for the meal we were about to receive. Amen. I had looked around the table at the tired faces and thought about the good times that I had had during my short stay here. I would be going home Sunday morning. My parents were coming for me Saturday and would stay over night before driving back to St. Louis on Sunday.
"That bird was tougher than I thought," Aunt Fern said as she chewed a mouthful of the chicken and dumplings, "has a strange taste."
"Probably ‘cause we had to chase him all over heck's half acre." Sharon grimaced as she looked my way and gently kicked my shin under the table.
"Now I ain't saying it ain't good, Sharon. It's just fine actually. That so, Dad?" Aunt Fern gave my uncle a look that said, ‘just agree with me.'
"Yes, Mother. I don't think I've tasted better. Unless, of course, it was yours, Mother." He smiled sweetly.
Today I can still remember my first taste of rattlesnake meat. It truly does taste a lot like chicken. And I don't guess my cousin ever told her mom and dad about old man Wilson stopping by that fateful day with a package of fresh dressed rattler---the day the rooster got clean away.
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