For such an unlucky day, I got news of a pretty big raise (years in the making.)

Kathy called me at work to report that Danny had spotted a snake in the back yard. It was a big one she said, just laying there coiled up near the stick pile.

I told her to try to throw a garbage can over it, and I’d come home to help figure out what it was.

When I got home, Kathy had been unable to get a trashcan over it because the snake was too near some sticks. I was surprised to see how big it was. It seemed dark and dirty, so it was hard to see the pattern. My guess was that it was a water snake.

I changed out of my office attire and put on some work gloves to catch the snake. Kelly was very interested in helping me, but Kathy kept holding her back (despite Kelly’s protests.) Danny watched with much interest, since, after all, he had discovered the snake. Nicole nervously kept her distance all the way up on the upper deck. She was 40 feet away and 10 feet up. At least one of us would survive to tell the story.

I grabbed the snake and it immediately squirted a lot of milky white smelly stuff from its tail. A lot of the stuff, actually. Smelled awful. I put the snake in a garbage can. Nicole was terribly nervous. Kathy was excited. Kelly was delighted and trying out her new word “snake! snake! snake!”. She was also frustrated that she was shorter than the garbage can, so she immediately tried to pull it over.

I put the can next to the lower deck so that she could climb up and get a better view.

We poured some water into the garbage can to clean the dirt off the snake. That did the trick because the bands stuck out that looked just like the water snake markings we had seen at Washington Square. We had read back then that water snakes make bad pets because they are so mean.

I let the snake out in the yard and caught it (with Kathy’s help and a hockey stick) so that I could pick him up. Everyone got a good look and feel, including some neighbors walking by. Kelly held the snake in both hands (with me holding the head.) She looked pretty brave. Her fingers couldn’t even reach all the way around the thick snake.

We then let him go in the ditch, and he slithered back towards the river.

Biggest snake I ever caught in my life. Not as big as the Yellow Rat snake, though, that my Dad wouldn’t let me catch when we were canoeing down the Ogeechee river.