Copperheads!

Wow, it's been a while.  Dad has gotten all shy on me and wants me to wait "until he kicks off" to put his stories out there.  My clever husband has suggested I collect stories from other people in the meantime, which I think is an excellent idea.
If you want your story (or one that's not necessarily yours, but has been passed down or whatever) here, it must meet a few (very few) criteria:  It should be a story about something you probably couldn't get away with nowadays, and well, that's it.
Also, you can be anonymous.  I love making up aliases.
Anyway, that's it--oh, no, wait, also it can just be a story (or memory!) about old Virginia as my husband puts it.  Back in the day, as it were.  People love those, especially since so much has changed so quickly.
So there:  Something you couldn't get away with today and something about how it used to be around here (Fairfax, Chantilly, Reston, Herndon, Vienna, etc.).

So here is my story (more of a memory, really) of my Gramaw and the Copperhead War.  Okay, it wasn't a war but lots of skirmishes throughout her life.  This memory was brought about by the recent news of the rise in copperhead snakes in Fairfax County.

When she was alive, Gramaw spent a lot of time in the mountains (I expect she's there all the time now), and she stayed in an ancient house that she had decorated with the hundreds of greeting cards and postcards she'd received over the years, along with various clippings and bits that made her chuckle or reminded her of her loved ones.  She would stay in that big scary (at night) house all by herself, and mind you, this was a lady who was afraid of the dark.  She wasn't afraid of anything but the dark. 
And here I will get sidetracked a bit to tell you why she was afraid of the dark, because it wasn't something she was just born with, but something she learned.  Soon after Gramaw was born in 1912, her mother died, leaving her father with several kids (5 or 6).  After a few years, he found he couldn't care for the children, so he sent them off to foster homes.  In one of these foster homes that my Gramaw was in, the punishment of misbehavior was to be locked in a dark closet.  The other kids would scratch on the closet door and generally terrify her.  This was how she learned to be afraid of the dark.
She wouldn't let her fear of the dark keep her from doing things, she just armed herself with a big flashlight and an even bigger gun.  My Gramaw was a tough chick, but as sweet as the delicious chocolate fudge she made.

Back to the copperheads!  She once told me a story of how a copperhead bit her dog on the leg and the skin turned all black and sore.  The dog survived.
So whenever Gramaw would be out in the woods for a long time, she would take her big ol' pistol, her nitroglycerin tablets for her heart, and her snake bite kit.  I don't recall ever encountering snakes on our walks, but I do remember driving down the dirt road and seeing a snake in the middle.  Gramaw gunned the engine and ran that coppehead over.  Then she backed up and ran him over again.  Once more, just for good measure, she ran him over, then got out to check that he was dead.  This is the only time I'd ever seen her be ruthless.  Usually she was saving creatures, including black snakes.  She couldn't stand for animals to be hurt.
But copperheads (and water moccasins) were a threat to her family and her pets.
I miss her!

 Gramaw & Baby Po 2006




PS forgive any mistakes, Po is requiring my attention and I'm short on time.