Bill
04-21-2008, 08:28 PM
When I was 12 years old, my mother and father, and my sister and I traveled from our home in Chesapeake, Va "back home" to Wellsburg, WVA, as we did each summer for a 2 week visit. We tried to time it for when the carnival was in town. Forgive my possible mis-spellings and odd sentence structure, this is all "off the cuff". Small-town carnival atmosphere is amazing. You stay with family and then walk down the street, and ride a few rides and then we would go back to the porch and sit and watch the fireworks display while you ate a candy-apple or made yourself sick with too much cotton-candy. We stayed at my Uncle John and Aunt Cathy's house that year, and the next day was one of my cousin's birthdays (sorry "cuz") but I can't remember which one. A local 15 year old brought his pony down for the party and let the little kids ride it around the yard. I remember he looked like Tom Petty, and I was made aware by the adults that although he was a very nice young man, he smoked cigarettes, and they were trying to help him quit. He had a really nice looking Appaloosa-looking pony and I remember as I admired the pony, my cousin Debbie went over to talk to him and thank him for bringing his pony to the birthday party, and just then a horde of my cousins ran up and said, "hey, you wanna go see the snake pit, Billy?" I said, yeah, and I was surprised that they started walking into the back yard instead of down the street into town. "It's not at the carnival?", I said. Jimmy, my older cousin, who lived there, said,"No, it's an old abandoned well in our back yard, if you look down into it, it's full of snakes." "How many?" I said. everybody said all at once, "We don't know! They're moving around so much, you can't count 'em" We all ran to the back yard and my ten or so cousins moved a piece of plywood off of a hole in the ground and gathered around, peering down. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! There were possibly hundreds of snakes down there! I said, "what are they?", as I stepped closer to get a better look. Jimmy said, "we don't know, they could be copperheads, maybe garter snakes, but don't get too close, you're gonna fall in" I said, "I'm not, I just want to get a better look" And just then, As I stepped closer onto the grass around the hole to get a better look, the edge gave way and I realized that,over the years, soil and grass had grown over top of slowly rotting boards and had given the appearance of solid ground. I crashed through, falling into the snake pit, and at this point, my mind clarified, and I realized that my best chance at this point was to spring back up out of the pit as soon as my legs compressed. I didn't even want to consider a second leap, as your first attempt is always your strongest. I hit and came flying back up out of the hole. My cousins said that they didn't even have time to react. One minute, I was crashing through into the snake pit, and the next instant I was flying up out of the pit and standing next to them. Everyone was amazed, and to this day, still are. I've told this story to alot of people, and many have said that God jerked me out of that snake pit, my time wasn't done, and that's what I believe. It was a deep hole, and I was covered in scratches, but no snake bites. True story.