Fred and Wild Bill - How Small Things Can Get Big Real Quick!

See below for a true [per Fred] story about a little green snake.

Our home in Loveland, Ohio had a 20 ft X 42 ft in-ground gunite swimming pool.  Our lot was 1.8 acres and the pool house/filter system was in the woods below the pool.  For two summers a little green snake, who I named George, lived under the pool house.  George and I would scare the hell out of each other about once per week.  Example.  I would start to adjust a filter valve only to find George curled up 2 inches from my hand. George would 'sun himself' on the concrete slab for the filter.  Honestly, he would be sound asleep.  I would yell "Hey George" and the poor snake would wake up and run for cover! 

I think George died of old age or was dinner for a family of six Cooper Hawks who moved into the woods behind our house each summer.  Each hawk seemed to have his own tree and they would all sit and watch the humans.   Vanderlei Madruga, head of IP's Brazilian Operations, came to Loveland to review the Technology Division after International Paper acquired Champion. I had worked with Vanderlei when we were both Champion and invited he and his wife for dinner at our home.  To make a long story short, Marilynn and I ended up hosting a formal 'white cloth' steak dinner on the deck around our pool for 16 Brazilians. The hawks were fascinated and watched the set-up and execution of the entire event.       

Wild Bill              See Fred's true story below!

From: fmiller
Sent: 8/22/2010 7:22:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: PROOF THAT GREEN SNAKES ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN RATTLESNAKES

PROOF THAT GREEN SNAKES ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN RATTLESNAKES

i know this story’s true, because my mother’s cousin’s wife told it to me.  So the next time you see a “harmless” little garden snake, think twice. . . . . . . . . . . .
A couple in Austin,Texas had lots of potted plants. Fearing an early cold spell, the wife was bringing them indoors for protection.  It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants.  When it warmed up a little, the snake slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.
Well she let out a loud scream causing her husband, who was taking a shower, to run naked out into the living room to see what was the matter.   She told him a snake was under the sofa.  He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it.  About that time, the family dog came to check out the ruckus and cold nosed the man on the behind.  He thought the snake had bitten him and fainted dead away. Thinking he’d had a heart attack, the wife called 911.  The ambulance attendants arrived and rushed in, loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him outside.  Just then the snake came out from under the sofa and one of the EMTs saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher.  That’s when the man broke his leg and why he is in the hospital, leaving his hysterical wife alone at home to cope with the snake in the house!!
So she called on a neighbor man for assistance.  Well, he volunteered to capture the snake.  Arming himself with a rolled-up newspaper he began to poke under the couch.  Soon he decided it was gone and told the lady everything was OK.  Much relieved, she sank down on the sofa to rest after her ordeal.  Her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around.  Of course, she screamed and fainted, and snake crawled back under the couch.  The frustrated neighbor tried with all his might to revive her using CPR.
Meanwhile, the neighbor’s wife was just returning from the grocery store.  Carrying her bags in, she glanced over next door and spied her husband on the sofa “kissing” her friend.  She ran over in a fury and whacked him up side the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp open.  All the commotion woke the woman from her faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so naturally she assumed the snake had bitten him.  She went to the kitchen, brought back a bottle of whiskey and began pouring it down the man’s throat.
By now, the police are on the scene.  They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken brawl was occurring.  They were about to arrest them all, but the two women explained how it all happened over the little green snake.  The cops called the ambulance again, which took away the bleeding neighbor and his sobbing wife.  Once again, the little snake crawled out from under the sofa.  One of the cops drew his gun and fired at it.  He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table beside the sofa.  The table fell over, a lamp shattered and as the bulb broke, it started a fire on the drapes.  The other policeman tried to beat out the flames and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog, which jumped up and raced out into the street.  An oncoming car swerved to avoid the dog and smashed into the parked police car, catching it on fire.
Meanwhile, the entire house was blazing.  Neighbors called the fire department and the fire truck, to make haste, started raising its ladder as they were halfway down the street.  The ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and phones in a ten-square city block area.
Time passed by.  Both men were eventually discharged from the hospital, the house rebuilt, the police had a new car, and all was right in the little neighborhood again.
Until about a year later, the man saw on the weather channel that there was approaching a late spring cold snap.  Being concerned about the potted plants, he asked his wife if she thought they should bring in their plants for the night.  She promptly got up off their new sofa, got his gun and shot him!!!!!  So you see, a little green snake is more dangerous than a rattlesnake, or I’m not a natural redhead!!!