Eric Schwennesen: Communication

These days when "communication" is the subject, people naturally think we're talking about how many bits or bytes are flowing. However, for the younger set it might be helpful to point out that some of us were using bits and bites long before they came in strange little black boxes. In fact we were getting bites even before computers were invented; but their ability to communicate an idea was at least as effective then, as now. Decades later, some of us can still vividly recall that first bite. It usually came from a cat or a lizard or a sibling.

There's an underlying theme to this: venom, real or theoretical, is the message. Tune in to any current news program if you have trouble believing it.

Which leads, naturally enough, to snakes.  Now it's not hard to see why snakes get such a big share of blame for venom: you try living your life without hands or feet to help get along, and the whole world looks bigger, taller, faster, meaner and downright dangerous. I was at the corral, heading for the valve box to change the water to another line, when a rattlesnake crossed my line of march. He was in a hurry and he glared at me; I wasn't, and let him slide by. Even for a snake he seemed peevish but I had other business to attend to. Reaching the valve box, I opened it up and started to change the valves, when that self-same snake crawled in under the edge of the box. 

I have no idea why that box meant so much to him; other than the valves there was nothing in it; I pulled quickly away and that was when I discovered that snakes can fly. He wasn't very big, maybe two feet long, but he coiled and managed to literally jump clear of the ground at least three feet in order to get his communication into my index finger.

The rest of the tale is typical enough; I still have some use of that finger. The snake met an untimely demise for the sake of advancing medical knowledge, and the Poison Control Center had a new topic for a few days. 

Eric Schwennesen is a commercial beef rancher in the Mogollon Rim country. He grew up in Belgium, cowboyed in Nevada, and helped Navajos and many African peoples with rangeland conflicts for over 35 years. He recently published "The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism" about his experiences.