struggling to make sense of the political process.

Photo by Morgan Jacobs

June 26^th, 1978

Dear Joyce, Freddy and kids,

We received your letter Saturday and was so happy to get it and hear from you.  We are all doing well.  Jack, the kids and I had the best vacation down at the lake.  This may sound funny to you but Jack and I work down their like a horse.  But we got so much done and it made us so proud at the end of the day to look around and see what we done.  The first week Jack kill one snake, then the second week he kill three or four, I’m not really sure we lost count.

The first week we work along the lake front pulling up stumps and things.  It was so hot that we had to stop and get water.  Well, one time we stop for water and was going back to start working again.  Mitch and Kara were playing in the play pen where we were getting water.  So we started down the hill to the lake.  Jack was up ahead.  I picked up my gloves and turn around and saw him hold his hand up for me to stop.  Right then and there I knew it was a snake, he got the machete and kill it.

The other time Jack and Mitch were fishing off the levee by the boat house and Jack kept asking me to come down there so finally Kara and I went down.  I had walked out on the levee and Jack was about to take Kara for me so I could fish a little.  About that time something moves and there was a snake down on my side trying to go back into the water.  All I could do was point at it and kind of gasp.  Jack looked down and saw the snake going back in the water.  I still couldn’t move or say anything.  He ran to the end of the levee and got his gun but by the time he got back the snake had disappeared into the water.  I was trying to get my heartbeat back to normal and Jack was standing there to make sure the snake didn’t come back out.

So about ten or fifteen minutes later I turn around and there was the snake with its head out of the water looking at us.  That time I was able to talk.  Jack shot six times into the spot where it was and I grab the kids and ran.  We thought for sure that six shots had surely got it.  We went up to the trailer and Jack got the rifle.  The kids and I stay inside and Jack went back and got it with the buckshot.

But what we found out was that the snakes (water-moccasins and cotton mouths) have made a den in the boathouse cause it hasn’t been used since daddy die.  This winter Jack and I are going to get rid of them and tear up the den so they won’t have a home.  I’ll let you know which one of us gets bitten first (laugh, laugh).  (When you are doing something like this that you are scared of, you have to joke about it or not be able to do it.)  But the Lord will take care of us.