BY HARRY WEEKES
In Barry Lopez’s “Winter Count,” the author talks about certain American Indian traditions, one of which is memorializing powerful annual events by drawing a representative icon on the wall of a teepee. Reading this many years ago got me thinking about seasonal events and how I wanted to mark the passage of time. One of the challenges I adopted was simple; every year I would catch a snake. Or try to. I say “simple” because this was just formalizing something I already did. Ever since I was little, I have loved catching snakes. One of the great things about growing up north of Croy Canyon is that catching snakes meant catching garter snakes—a pretty benign reptile.
I wanted to pass this tradition on to my kids, and since they were young, whenever we turned onto our driveway, I would say, “Get your snake eyes on,” meaning it was time to pay attention to the road in front of us and be on the lookout for snakes.
It is usually at some point in late May or early June when the “snake eyes” come out. When there have been enough warm days, when the hard and cold rains have pushed through, and when the sage is as green as it gets and the bitterbrush is about to bloom, I get that “snaky vibe.”
This year was a convergence of so many whammies it is hard to describe the emotional impact.
Whammy 1: I caught an early-season snake, which alleviates a bit of mental anxiety, both around having to catch a snake late in the year, and also having to catch a really active snake late in the year.
Whammy 2: I caught my first snake on June 12, the last day of faculty meetings and the start of my summer.
Whammy 3: I found and caught the snake a little bit before 6 a.m. while I was walking my warrior dachshund (my new nickname for him after he survived an attack by some bird of prey that left him covered with inch-long talon gashes).
And Whammy 4 was the type of snake—not the usual and more frequent garter, but the furtive and elusive rubber boa. That’s right, folks—boa, as in boa constrictor.
The rubber boa is about the most awesome snake on the planet. A tannish-brown color on top, with a distinct and creamy yellow belly, this denizen of the underbrush looks exactly like what you would make if you rolled a snake out of clay. Add to this the fact that these snakes are used in therapy to break people’s fear of snakes, and you have a creature you can easily pick up and handle. I have found fewer than five of them in my life, and each one has displayed the same characteristic; they slowly wrap around my wrist and then sit there, like living jewelry, absorbing my heat (or that’s what I think they are doing).
And so it was that I kicked off summer, in the early morning light, walking down my driveway amidst the sage-covered hills. I was ecstatic all day and said as much to Hilary when I talked to her on the phone.
In the background, I heard Georgia, my oldest daughter, say something. “What was that?” I asked. “Georgia says she caught a snake yesterday,” Hilary relayed. “That is so awesome,” I cooed. “Georgia says she beat you.”
Whammy 5.
Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey. This is his 47th year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with his wife Hilary and their three kids—Georgia, Penelope and Simon—a nice little flock.