CALLER-TIMES (Corpus Christi, Texas) 08 November 06 Snake-jumping trick, and other rattler tales
Last week I passed on the story of 'Rip' Ford's goat-counting. There's another story about Ford I once used in a radio commentary. The Ranger captain could jump on a snake and jump off again before the snake could strike. Ford, proud of his ability, would demonstrate the feat at any opportunity.
One day, according to "Rip Ford's Texas," he came across a 10-foot diamondback in South Texas. Ford was about to show off his trick when a friend warned him not to do it. The friend told Ford the rattler could strike farther than his length, and that few snakes are faster than an angry Texas rattler. Ford took a look at the 10-foot diamondback, coiled and ready for action, and rode away. He never jumped on another snake the rest of his life.
I have a file in my history cabinet labeled "snake tales." There's an item there about Thomas Noakes, who lived at Nuecestown in the 1850s and 1860s. Noakes wrote in his diary in 1858 that he killed six large rattlers in his yard, which rendered two bottles of snake oil.
Back then, snake oil was used for many purposes. It was used to make a liniment to treat rheumatism and muscle soreness. Gunfighters prized it for greasing their holsters. And some bald men used rattlesnake oil to grease their scalps to grow hair. Why anyone would think that would work sounds crazy. How many rattlesnakes have hair?
A cowboy saying held that "every man must kill his own snake," meaning every man must pull his own weight. Many superstitions related to snakes. One held that if you came across a dead snake with its white belly facing the sky, it would rain. Another said that a snake bite victim could cure himself by biting off the head of the snake that bit him. I doubt that few tried that.
J. Frank Dobie, the great Texas author from Live Oak County, once told of seeing two rattlesnakes swimming back and forth across a pond, obviously enjoying it, with their rattles held up high to keep them out of the water. The rattler's reputation for keeping his rattle away from water, Dobie reckoned, was behind the old custom of fiddlers putting snake rattles in their fiddles as a charm to keep the strings dry.
Another note says rattlesnake bites were common in the old days, but rarely fatal. I doubt that. A rattlesnake bite was almost always fatal . . . for the snake. People don't take kindly to being bitten.
When I was very young, in Coryell County, my mother warned me to keep an eye out for snake drags (that was an advantage to having a dirt yard) and that if I heard a rattle, to stand stock still, and not move a muscle until I knew which way to run. It sounds logical, but fear, I suspect, is impervious to logic.
Which makes 'Rip' Ford's snake-jumping feat all the more remarkable. Few of us can stand still with an angry rattler relating a warning and, as it were, a constructive suggestion. Getting out of the way is what we call risk aversion today.
Snake-jumping trick, and other rattler tales

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