I’ve seen online articles in the news about the snakes that are emerging, after their winter hibernation. Of course, snakes are very important, particularly venomous snakes. One article talked about, and showed copperhead snakes. They’re found in northern Florida, the panhandle, and of course, New York State. It reminded me of a prank my friend and I played on, the Head Counselor of a summer camp where we had been counselors. The camp was owned by our former Scout Master and his wife, and was situated in the Catskill Mountain region of New York State. It had originally been a small hotel, so the main three-story building was used for the dinning, and recreation room, with the top floor for camp personal, and guests. We were both working in the city that year, but we would spend the weekends at the camp helping out where we could. I was a Red Cross Water Safety Instructor, so on the weekends I would run the waterfront, to give the camp’s instructor time off. We both had rooms on the top floor next to the Head Counselor, who was also our former Assistant Scout Master. The Head Counselor, to put it mildly was not the neatest person in the world, his unmade bed was always strewn with clothing. It seems this particular week, some of the older boys came across a copperhead snake, one of the several venomous snakes found in New York State, and somehow stunned it, and brought it back to camp. It was being kept in one of those very large commercial mayonnaise jars, and the Head Counselor had it in his room. It was Friday evening, and we had just arrived, and heard about the snake. That night there was going to be entertainment by the campers after dinner. We knew that the Head Counselor, who was typically late for everything would be dashing into his room to quickly change for the evening, and that’s when we thought of the prank. We took the snake out of his room, and replaced, under all his messy clothing, a duplicate empty mayonnaise jar, but with the lid off, and then retired to our rooms, and waited. It wasn’t long before he came rushing up to change, and then there was this scream, with the Head Counselor rushing out of his room saying, “Ok, I know you guys did it, where is the snake, I’m not going back in there until you show it to me.” Of course, we played dumb for a couple of minutes, and then gave in, we gave him back the jar with the snake saying, “We just wanted you to clean up your room.”
