Snakes alive - not!

Yesterday morning hubby came back inside from taking the recycle bin out to the street, saying 'there's a big dead snake out there!'. Huh? Okay, let's go see. The camera doesn't lie - (unless you have photoshop or something like that). Sure 'nuff, I got a couple of shots of hubby holding the very dead snake by the tip of its tail - the thing must have been about four feet long. The mystery continues -- how and why did a snake, probably a Black King Snake, end up on the neutral strip of our yard, dead, and coiled like snakes do.??? We will never know.

In general, snakes are not anyone's favorite animal (reptile), but the Black King Snake is a friend rather than foe, since he is a rodent predator. We have not seen a mouse or rat in our yard (or house) for years! I truly hope that this dead critter was not our resident rodent controller.

I took the pictures with me to the Book Store and amazed several friends with our early morning discovery. Got lots of "wow"reactions, too !

Today, November 21st, is the 58th anniversary of our wedding. Another "wow" reaction from friends here, too! The day we pledged our vows at my home church was a beautiful, mild November day. During the ceremony a cold front blasted through our area, and when we left the church the wind was fierce and straight off the North Pole. My new sister-in-law gave me her fur cape to wear from the church to our reception, so I wouldn't freeze in my gorgeous white satin wedding dress.

November 1950 evokes so many memories I could 'write a book' and still not get everything recorded. Short version: our wedding was written up in the local Small-Town newspaper as "the Social Event of the Season". My dress was hand-crafted by my mother and maternal grandmother, who worked six weeks to create it, complete with 2000 seed pearls sewed onto the Alencon Lace collar. A series of pre-nuptial showers and parties had preceded the wedding, and everything was going along famously until my paternal grandfather fell, suffering multiple skull fractures. He was hospitalized in critical condition, on Nov. 18th. Because of that accident, my uncle from Boston and aunt from Pittsburgh were here for Grandfather and were able to come to the wedding ceremony, too. The planned large reception was quickly reorganized and held at my parents' home on a much smaller scale, instead.

Following the ceremony and reception, hubby's father drove us to the hotel where we spent the night before driving to New Orleans for our honeymoon. Hubby had received his draft notice letter from Uncle Sam prior to our wedding, and had to leave one week later for Army basic training in South Carolina (this was during the Korean Conflict time), so I did not see him again until New Years Day. We had our Thanksgiving Dinner at Antoine's in New Orleans!

Grandfather survived, in spite of having been given too much insulin in the hospital (he was diabetic), and lived another eight years as an invalid. He was the sitting Mayor of our Town at the time, but the vice-mayor served in his stead until the next election.

The rest... as they say... is History. :-)