Nebraskaland

52 Nebraskaland • April 2022 MIXED BAG For many years, I had an old friend here on the Middle Loup River who showed up once a year with an uncanny sense of timing. It was always about the same time of year, but he seemed to know exactly the point at which I would forget about his last visit. I would be walking my usual path down toward the river, go through the dip where a slough used to run, and there he would be. He would hiss loudly, coil menacingly, rear back with a clear intent of killing me with his venomous fangs, and then, I imagine, chuckle to himself when he saw me jump 10 feet in the air and land with my feet in full bicycle motion, only to stop about 10 yards down the path when I realized it was just my old friend, the same old "BS" — bullsnake — up to the same old tricks he had used to scare me about this time every blasted year. I've missed the guy the past few years. I think he may have figured out that scaring me wasn't nearly as much fun as it was sending Linda, Antonia, or one of our dogs or cats straight into the traditional vertical take-off and horizontal dash, but now complete with siren- like sound effects. On one occasion when my old friend Bull pulled his annual gag on Linda, I was out of town. So Linda got her camera and took photos because she knew I would doubt her report of having been attacked by a fire-breathing, 40-foot dragon right in our driveway. I know and understand that a lot of people have aversions about snakes, and I've come too close to rattlesnakes often enough that I understand that creepy feeling, but snakes here in central Nebraska are — let's be honest about it — frauds. The eastern hognose puts even a bullsnake's bluff to shame with his theatrics of make-like-a-rattler, but then has an even more hilarious comedy act if his threats don't work: He rolls over and says in his most convincing body language, "Honest! I'm dead! No kidding. Dead, dead, dead!" And tiny ringnecks with their beautiful olive skin and bright orange necklace, are, well, downright cute — a disgrace to the serpent world where intimidation and threat are supposed to be de rigeur. I cringe as I recall a time a neighbor drove into town and announced that she had killed six rattlesnakes in her backyard, not a quarter of a mile from our place. I went out to her truck to see the evidence of her garden spade butchery and was dismayed to find that her "rattlesnakes" were actually bullsnakes. A common mistake, perhaps, but geez, if you don't know what you're killing, don't kill it! No, it can't be easy for reptiles on the Plains as long as there are the timorous with shovels in hand, but I was cheered last fall when Linda reported that the dragons had returned to our driveway, this time in multiple numbers and much smaller than the "boa constrictor" she had seen the time I was not here to defend her. She saw not one but four young bullsnakes warming on our gravel pile. I'll be watching for them next spring. No, correction: Sure as heck, I won't be watching for them. I'll be walking along, guileless, feckless, when all at once there'll be a loud hiss, a frantic coiling, and a baring of fangs, and same as always, I'll go straight up in the air 10 feet! Roger Welsch is an author, humorist, folklorist and a former essayist for CBS News Sunday Morning. He is the author of more than 40 books and has been contributing to Nebraskaland Magazine since 1977. BS, NOTHING BUT BS By Roger Welsch

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