I’m on the other side of bend on county road 217 or roller coaster hill as locals call it. My house is at one end of roller coaster hill and I’m driving to work now. Not as groggy as usual because I did some “work” at home and left a little later. The public radio station is playing some alt-country-blue-grass something or other. The road is 1 ¾” lanes, no shoulder, no median. It’s been patched so many times that its like a lumpy quilt of shades of black and gray. I’m sipping my coffee and I notice a ripple in the road, like a piece of ribbon or cassette tape unspooled reflecting the light. But the ripple is also crossing the road. It’s a tiny garter snake and he’s booking it to avoid me. I do a swerve but a ‘responsible’ swerve. I’m not sure if he avoided my wheels or not. I back up. No sign of him. I move on and the snake is beyond my interest in seconds. The county road flattens out and takes a few near-ninety degree turns and after the last one, there’s a big ripple. No mistaking this one – a big gray whip snake. He’s booking it too, but not because of me. He’s being hounded by a big blue jay – a female that’s more gray than blue. She is making sure this snake does not loiter around making trouble. “Hell hath no fury” and all that and doubly so if a woman is a mamma. I’m not sure which of them I can empathize with. I think to myself - I wonder if I was Native American if this would be some kind of omen - the little snake, then the big snake and the bird – on the road.
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