When I was a kid I was fascinated with magic. I read in one of my books that an old trick of turning a stick into a snake was to take a snake and freeze it. Being cold blooded, it becomes temporarily petrified. It doesn’t hurt the snake. So I caught a two foot garter snake and dunked him into a pail of ice cold water. Sure enough, after a few minutes he was as stiff as a stick. I took him to the house and put it in the sink. My mother, who didn’t know about the trick, saw the stick in the sink and reached down to take it out. This was just about the time he was thawing out and he moved – a little stiffly – but enough to make an impression on my mother. I know for her this was one of those times when the brain stops. Nothing is computing. This is a stick. Sticks do not wiggle. This stick has eyes. Mom screamed. This made a big impression on me because I had five brothers. Nothing much surprised my mother so she rarely screamed. “Get that snick—stick—SNAKE out of here!” I tried to explain the trick but she didn’t want to hear about it. I was really disappointed in her lack of appreciation for magic. The snake didn’t appreciate the trick either. I put him back in the rock pile where I found him and never saw him again. I did actually see a snake shed its skin once. It was a large milk snake. It was pushing its way up between two large black rocks on the brown grassy hillside of the farm where I grew up. As it heaved its way up, the dull shell was caught between the rocks. The snake’s newly exposed skin had a high gloss, like a newly polished car. It was beautiful. I gave that experience to Mendel.
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