*brain spasm
From Narratively:
As a reptile-obsessed teen, I ran away to hunt lizards in the Everglades, then hatched a plan to milk venom from deadly snakes. It went even more comically wrong than you're thinking.
Like many adventures, it began with faulty research. Dried snake venom could bring upward of $400 an ounce, said a newspaper article.
For a 15-year-old in 1956, that was a princely sum, nearly $4,000 in today’s dollars.
In my tender teenage years, more than one get-rich-quick scheme shook their flashy lures and hooked me on their shiny, sharp barbs. Despite comic and cosmic serial failures, coupled with persistent pig-headedness, nothing kept me from seeking the next shortcut to wealth — least of all, learning from experiences. This one seemed a sure thing.
The mystique and power of serpents reared early for me — in grammar school. A classmate showed me where to catch harmless DeKay’s snakes underneath plywood, boards and other clutter in fields. Turning over a piece of debris, sometimes two to four of these docile brown guys lay tightly coiled side by side, rarely a foot long.
Gently, I would lift them from their hiding places with my fingers, and as they attempted to slither away I’d let them go from palm to palm, as if on a treadmill of endless steps made from hands. Deposited in a shirt pocket, they seemed content in darkness for hours, mammalian body warmth heating reptilian cold blood.
Even a worm-sized snake provokes instant, instinctual recoil in many people. I enjoyed the squeals and squeaks of terror when pretending to throw them on the girls I thought were pretty, or pretending to drop one down the backs of their blouses.
These little brown snakes were an introduction to the larger, fascinating serpentine kingdom. A close friend in my North Carolina high school, John, was a serious amateur herpetologist, meticulously studying and drawing the snakes he caught, including poisonous ones — copperheads, rattlesnakes and “cottonmouth” water moccasins. He showed me how to catch and handle them, and more importantly how to distinguish poisonous ones from those that weren’t.
I too began to collect them and “pickle” the specimens in jars of alcohol in a makeshift “snake lab” in the attic. My parents allowed the lab on one nonnegotiable condition — never, ever, ever bring a live snake into the house. Of course, I occasionally violated that rule under the ruse of scientific study. Once, a near record-size copperhead nearly got loose in the attic insulation. Sheer panic and a quick barehanded grab of his tail kept him from disappearing into the rafters, and me from being thrown out of the house.
At age 14, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, seemed boring, without much promise. Myself and Richard L., a school friend and fellow newspaper carrier, hatched a bold plan for a wider and wilder adventure. Secretly, on the chosen day, we sold our bikes and emptied our small savings accounts accrued from paper routes. The total came to $74. Without telling our parents, we hitchhiked 750 miles south to central Florida. I had convinced my friend and fellow runaway that we could live in the Everglades and I would catch snakes and alligators and sell them to Ross Allen, the world-famous herpetologist whose science and research into antivenin (antivenom serum) was hailed with acclaim. During World War II, he’d helped develop a powder made of dried venom and antibodies for soldiers to carry and use against the menace of snakebites. His Florida reptile institute had become a major tourist attraction where visitors could gaze at the animal life through glass-bottom boats.
Richard was deathly afraid of snakes, but my over-the-top confidence somehow convinced him this was a viable plan. We caught a ride with a man who seemed probably on the lam from the law, judging from how paranoid he was. Fast driving, constantly watching the rearview....
....MUCH MORE
People will do a lot of things for money. Sometimes it goes very wrong.
