Thank God for snakes

We will do the snake story later. One year ago I left NYC for the high country of Montana to develop my teaching skills. I had just received my B.A from Queens College. Our cabin is on the Stillwater River; the river runs from the Absarokee Mountains to the town of Columbus and then joins the Yellowstone River. As much as I enjoyed my classmates at Queens College, and CPTC the high school children in Montana were a blessing to work with. My best professors at Queens were able to teach the real important information, one would find, between the lines. I endeavored to follow their mentoring example. I brought sixty plus years of working and life experience to my task. We live in an area of only a few thousand residents, actually 6 per square mile, with the majority living in the country. Snakes, my Deborah doesn’t like them. Deb grew up in Snake County in North Dakota.

However, my snakes are a fact of life, found in the market place as well as on the road. As a mechanical contractor my senses were alert for snakes in a business suits. I could trust a rattlesnake by their consistent actions, the one in a suit are not so easy.
Last week I was running on a gravel road in the country, the lanes are marked with four strand barbed wire twenty feet to my left and right. I am running south-east with the sun at about 11:00 am; this is my true 21 mile marathon training route. To my right is the Absarokee Mountains sixty miles away and peaking to 13000 ft above sea level. I can tell you that after thousands of miles on this route the rattlers lie on the south side, wheel track, of the road in late afternoon. They lie stretched out across my lane dosing as I approach them .I will stride over them before they coil , my 5 foot stride, will carry me passed the eight foot striking zone. I have never been bit by a snake, only 2 dogs in 40,000 miles. One trip to the hospital in 20,000 miles is OK.
My snakes keep me alert, both on the road and in the market place. I am returning to city running and starting my marketing, fellow club members keep your head up and be aware of danger in the park or marketplace.

Frank William Wilson Jr.