Opinion: Milk a snake? Now that would be worth the wait

Talk about it

I once stood in front of a booth at a carnival in Chamberlain for more than an hour listening to the patter from the guy running the place.

I can’t recall what he was trying to sell. I mean, I know he was asking people to buy something. That’s the point of a carnival booth, to get the folks strolling past to stop, listen and buy something, take a chance on something, try their skill at something, whether it is matching numbers, pitching pennies into dishes or knocking cleverly weighted dolls from a shelf with a baseball. I can’t remember hearing what the guy in the booth in the carnival in Chamberlain was trying to sell.

I stood near the booth such a long time because I was waiting to see the guy milk a rattlesnake.

I was maybe 12 years old, and I was at the carnival with two friends. My friends were sucked in by a barker at a booth where a person could win stuffed bears and personalized key chains for throwing baseballs through a hole in the back screen. Now, from the street, it looked like a pretty goodsized hole, considerably bigger than a baseball. It should have been a piece of cake for someone who played baseball.

I worked on the farm during summers, so I wasn’t a baseball player. I took one look at the game and knew I’d only embarrass myself in front of my friends if I put down a quarter and picked up the ball. At that age, there were few things less appealing to me than making a fool of myself in front of my friends, especially in an activity that involved athletic skills. I shook my head and started to walk on.

My friends were on the local youth team, and each of them was pretty good on the diamond. One of them was a pitcher. The other played shortstop and could make decent throws to first on ground balls hit his way. They were also pretty confident, and they decided to give it a try, especially after the barker suggested in a loud voice that he might have some boys who were afraid to take a chance.

Neither of my friends hit the mark on the first try. A small crowd gathered, drawn by the barker’s voice taunting my friends with each miss. They felt honor-bound to stay and try again, and again. Oddly enough, I felt embarrassed for them, and I wandered on down the street, right into voice range of the guy who promised to milk a rattlesnake.

The image of somebody milking a rattlesnake sucked me in the way the notion of winning a prize for throwing a baseball had tugged my friends to their booth. I grew up frightened of rattlesnakes. My dad hated them and tried to kill every one he saw. My mom issued warnings about them every time one of us kids left the house on the farm. To see somebody take one and milk it (whatever that was), well, that was something I didn’t want to miss. I picked a spot just out of the way of the foot traffic and settled into a waiting mode.

The guy talked a while about rattlesnake venom and rattlesnake habits and then veered off onto a subject that didn’t really interest me. I hung around, half daydreaming, as his voice rose and fell. Other folks would stop by, listen for a couple of minutes and move on. Me, I was in it for the long haul.

Then I heard the barker say, “In just a minute, I’m going to milk a rattlesnake, right before your eyes.”

Hey, I thought. What’s up here? I listened as he talked about rattlesnake venom, again, and rattlesnake habits, again.

It dawned on me the guy wasn’t really going to milk a snake. I doubt he had one in the booth. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed at being duped, I’d have called him on it. Instead, I walked off to find my friends, neither of whom had a stuffed bear or personalized key chain.

Terry Woster’s columns are published Wednesdays and Saturdays in The Daily Republic.

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