58 Nebraskaland • April 2024
THE LAST STOP
The skin of a bullsnake, finely preserved in the day trading offices of Kurrus and Sons. JEFF KURRUS, NEBRASKALAND
By Jeff Kurrus
A DAY TRADING SNAKESKINNER
Hiding behind an empty gumball machine on
my son's bookshelf, I saw the snakeskin.
I couldn't help but shake my head.
Created during COVID, the snakeskin was
one of many new-fangled hobbies the Kurrus
family began. Deer scorers; military tank
history experts; bird food creators; stock market
day traders. You name it, we were in.
Everything was fair game when the entire
family was home, with kids being schooled
online and never-before-uttered words like
Zoom and phrases like "CPE is on a run!"
becoming commonplace.
But the snakeskin creation was also an
example of common.
Riding gravel roads one afternoon in Cass
County, our family came across a recently
deceased bullsnake. We took it to the house
and, after a video or two, began our newest
hobby.
We rung the neck with a knife, then we
peeled the snake's skin back with our hands.
Once off , we placed it over an old broomstick
and generously rubbed table salt over the inside
of the skin. We left the skin like this for several
days, eventually rubbing the salt off , turning
the skin right-side out, and covering the outside
with Vaseline.
Now this is where you snakeskin afi cionados
will shake your heads, telling me this is the
exact opposite of what we should do — how
there are much better pickling solutions than
Vaseline. Yet upon stumbling across the skin
again the other day, it was still shiny and in great
shape.
But that's not where its discovery took me.
It reminds me that I had no idea what I was
doing when making a snakeskin, much like my
bank account reminds me I had no idea what I
was doing when I was memorizing stock tickers
in an eff ort to accelerate my disastrous day
trading ventures.
Yet I can't help but smile when I think about
either.
