Yep.....another snake story. But first, a little background.
During WW1, an army base named Camp Cody was established on the outskirts of Deming, NM. An auxilliary base for artillery training purposes was established about 10 miles straight north of the main base, out in raw open desert. This little artillery base had no permanent structures and the only thing remaining above ground is a cement slab a couple feet high where they had mounted an artillery piece. The base was closed down in 1918 so the desert has reclaimed its own with the normal greasewood, cactus, rabbitbush, mormon tea bushes, etc. The base is located about 200 yards off a gravel road and behind a cattle pen and watering tank and if you didnt know it was there, you would never find it except by chance. The thing I found really interesting about the place is that all its roadways, sidewalks, tent sites were still outlined with rocks. It is like someone drew a schematic diagram of the base with lines made of smaller rocks picked up from the desert floor. You can recognize, by its extra width, the main road as it made a slow curve thru the small base. Branching off from the main road are the "sidewalks" leading down thru the tent areas. You can just visualize how the tents were perfectly lined up in military fashion. At the doorway entrance to each tent site, two small "flower bed" shapes were there on each side of the doorway. In my mind, I can just imagine some old hardnosed Colonel insisting those poor old doughboys would plant and grow flowers in front of each tent site.
The roadway curved around the base of a small hill to what I figured was the base headquarters area because it had a small 4 foot circle outlined within a sort of larger circle. I could visualize the flag pole in the small circle and soldiers standing in the larger circle as they performed the raising and lowering flag ceremonies. Behind the flagpole area would have been the headquarters tents and behind that the officers tents, all diagramed with lines of rocks. A metal detector turned up lots of administrative stuff such as paper clips and those old dip type fountain pen points to kind of verify this area as headquarters and administrative area. The army operated on paperwork back then too you know.
That old artillery base was within about 2 miles of the Hidden Valley RV Ranch where I lived and was always a pleaseant place for me to spend an interesting hour or two metal detecting when I didnt wont to be too far from home. The top of the little hill there was a nice place to view the spectacular New Mexico sunsets from also.
Since I prowled all that area arond the RV ranch and got to know it pretty well, I somehow became known as a sort of "guide". It was a free service as I enjoyed meeting new folks and metal detecting with snowbird type treasure hunters as they traveled thru that part of NM.
I got a phone call from a guy named Frank one morning wonting to know if I would show him the little artillery base. He was bringing his girlfriend Betty. Now Betty had never been seen wearing nothing but shorts and a tanktop, I suggested to Frank that she dress for a little desert walking in blue jeans. It wasnt that Betty didnt look nice in shorts, really, really nice but blue jeans would be more practical.
Frank and Betty met me at the cattle pen. Betty got out of the car, gave me a defiant look, and informed me that she would do just fine in her shorts. And there she stood in her short shorts. And I had to admit that she did look fine. When Frank walked around to get his detector out of his car trunk, he was wearing his manly version of short shorts. A real modern couple. I just shrugged as I stood there in my old battered and scratched up jeans.
We opened the gate and started up a two rut road towards the base. Frank was expounding on the virtues of his shiny new metal detector. He stopped to point something out to me about his detector, stepping slightly out of the road with the back of his legs up against a little bush. I think they are called rabbit bushes. There was a rattlesnake coiled up in that bush, its head sticking out but thankfully not on Franks side of the bush. Betty saw the snake at the same time as I did and as she screamed I was grabbing at Frank and hollering "SNAKE!!" Franks reaction to my grabbing at him was to swing back at me, rapping me upside the head with the coil of his detector while stumbling back into the bush and snake. Frank and Betty were then doing a duet of screams while all I could think to do was to keep hollering "Snake!!" and trying to use my detector coil to seperate the snake from Franks legs as he stumbled clear of the bush.
In the meantime, Betty had rapidly regressed backwards without benefit of any navigational aids and pulled up short on a barbwire fence, still screaming. Frank had progressed from screaming to cussing. "I felt that slimy SOB on my legs", he yelled as he was trying to beat the rattlesnake to death with his cute little Tesoro metal detector.
Once Frank and I realized that Betty,s screams were dominating our little desert drama, we ran over and got her unhooked from the barbed wire fence. She stopped screaming and started making choking, quick sobbing sound. As I was trying to open the gate fence and hold her up with one hand at the same time I heard her gasping something that sounded like "ventimating". As we got thru the gate she started gasping for air and I plainly heard her gasping "Breathe in a bag, breathe in a bag!" We threw her in the car and slammed her door. Frank jerked open the rear door of his car and threw his thoroughly trashed but still cute little Tesoro detector into the rear seat while Betty had draped herself over into the rear seat area grabbing around and saying, "Frank, I need a bag to breath in, Frank I need a bag". Frank slammed the rear door and turned to yell some choice words at me something to the effect that I should have warned them about the snakes. Then they roared off in a trail of dust.
During WW1, an army base named Camp Cody was established on the outskirts of Deming, NM. An auxilliary base for artillery training purposes was established about 10 miles straight north of the main base, out in raw open desert. This little artillery base had no permanent structures and the only thing remaining above ground is a cement slab a couple feet high where they had mounted an artillery piece. The base was closed down in 1918 so the desert has reclaimed its own with the normal greasewood, cactus, rabbitbush, mormon tea bushes, etc. The base is located about 200 yards off a gravel road and behind a cattle pen and watering tank and if you didnt know it was there, you would never find it except by chance. The thing I found really interesting about the place is that all its roadways, sidewalks, tent sites were still outlined with rocks. It is like someone drew a schematic diagram of the base with lines made of smaller rocks picked up from the desert floor. You can recognize, by its extra width, the main road as it made a slow curve thru the small base. Branching off from the main road are the "sidewalks" leading down thru the tent areas. You can just visualize how the tents were perfectly lined up in military fashion. At the doorway entrance to each tent site, two small "flower bed" shapes were there on each side of the doorway. In my mind, I can just imagine some old hardnosed Colonel insisting those poor old doughboys would plant and grow flowers in front of each tent site.
The roadway curved around the base of a small hill to what I figured was the base headquarters area because it had a small 4 foot circle outlined within a sort of larger circle. I could visualize the flag pole in the small circle and soldiers standing in the larger circle as they performed the raising and lowering flag ceremonies. Behind the flagpole area would have been the headquarters tents and behind that the officers tents, all diagramed with lines of rocks. A metal detector turned up lots of administrative stuff such as paper clips and those old dip type fountain pen points to kind of verify this area as headquarters and administrative area. The army operated on paperwork back then too you know.
That old artillery base was within about 2 miles of the Hidden Valley RV Ranch where I lived and was always a pleaseant place for me to spend an interesting hour or two metal detecting when I didnt wont to be too far from home. The top of the little hill there was a nice place to view the spectacular New Mexico sunsets from also.
Since I prowled all that area arond the RV ranch and got to know it pretty well, I somehow became known as a sort of "guide". It was a free service as I enjoyed meeting new folks and metal detecting with snowbird type treasure hunters as they traveled thru that part of NM.
I got a phone call from a guy named Frank one morning wonting to know if I would show him the little artillery base. He was bringing his girlfriend Betty. Now Betty had never been seen wearing nothing but shorts and a tanktop, I suggested to Frank that she dress for a little desert walking in blue jeans. It wasnt that Betty didnt look nice in shorts, really, really nice but blue jeans would be more practical.
Frank and Betty met me at the cattle pen. Betty got out of the car, gave me a defiant look, and informed me that she would do just fine in her shorts. And there she stood in her short shorts. And I had to admit that she did look fine. When Frank walked around to get his detector out of his car trunk, he was wearing his manly version of short shorts. A real modern couple. I just shrugged as I stood there in my old battered and scratched up jeans.
We opened the gate and started up a two rut road towards the base. Frank was expounding on the virtues of his shiny new metal detector. He stopped to point something out to me about his detector, stepping slightly out of the road with the back of his legs up against a little bush. I think they are called rabbit bushes. There was a rattlesnake coiled up in that bush, its head sticking out but thankfully not on Franks side of the bush. Betty saw the snake at the same time as I did and as she screamed I was grabbing at Frank and hollering "SNAKE!!" Franks reaction to my grabbing at him was to swing back at me, rapping me upside the head with the coil of his detector while stumbling back into the bush and snake. Frank and Betty were then doing a duet of screams while all I could think to do was to keep hollering "Snake!!" and trying to use my detector coil to seperate the snake from Franks legs as he stumbled clear of the bush.
In the meantime, Betty had rapidly regressed backwards without benefit of any navigational aids and pulled up short on a barbwire fence, still screaming. Frank had progressed from screaming to cussing. "I felt that slimy SOB on my legs", he yelled as he was trying to beat the rattlesnake to death with his cute little Tesoro metal detector.
Once Frank and I realized that Betty,s screams were dominating our little desert drama, we ran over and got her unhooked from the barbed wire fence. She stopped screaming and started making choking, quick sobbing sound. As I was trying to open the gate fence and hold her up with one hand at the same time I heard her gasping something that sounded like "ventimating". As we got thru the gate she started gasping for air and I plainly heard her gasping "Breathe in a bag, breathe in a bag!" We threw her in the car and slammed her door. Frank jerked open the rear door of his car and threw his thoroughly trashed but still cute little Tesoro detector into the rear seat while Betty had draped herself over into the rear seat area grabbing around and saying, "Frank, I need a bag to breath in, Frank I need a bag". Frank slammed the rear door and turned to yell some choice words at me something to the effect that I should have warned them about the snakes. Then they roared off in a trail of dust.
