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Darek's January 2010 column

By Darek Johnson

I started my hike early, but had walked further than planned, so, to shortcut back to the house, I stepped from the path, to cross though a thicket of blackjack trees and underbrush. I was enjoying a few days with friends who lived in the hills of northern Oklahoma. It was a hot, July morning.
The walk had made me hungry. I thought of breakfast, of coffee and pancakes, syrup and melted butter. Thus distracted, and a quarter mile later, I casually pushed aside some brush and damn near stepped on a fat, penny-brown, copperhead snake.
It pitched upward — like lightning — to strike at me.

I reeled backwards, swifter than he, thankfully, in a feral reflex surely drawn from ancestral blood.
The snake’s twin fangs — snow-white needles arched across a daisy-pink mouth — passed within inches of my leg.
All in less than a second.

It wasn’t my first encounter with a poisonous snake, or my last, but this one — so unexpected on a sunny morning — scared the hell out of me. Worse, however, was to realize that I stood in a sea of underbrush — how many more snakes were there?
Another early morning, in a European city, while boarding a crowded subway car, I discovered a smallish woman in a blue, Sunday-school dress stealing my wallet. With thin fingers, she was lifting it from my front trousers pocket. As with the snake, I reacted before thinking — I quickly grabbed her hand and stopped the act. Unfazed, she pulled away and melted into the station crowd.
All within a second.
I was in the middle of the city — how many pickpockets were there?

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