STORY AND PHOTOS BY JERI CHADWELL-SINGLEY 16 | RN&R |
Part one: a day at the museum Daylight filters in through the skylights, and the sound of splashing water mingles with the shrieks of laughing children. Sunday afternoon at the Snakes Alive! Exhibit in the Wilbur D. May Center sounds like a jungle. How did I end up here? I don’t have kids, and I’m really, really afraid of snakes. So far, though, I’m keeping my cool. It’s hard to get too worked up over little snakes curled up in the corners of little glass terrariums. Plus, the droves of children don’t seem frightened, so I’ve got to save face. Nevertheless, I find I’ll have to increase the shutter speed on my camera to compensate for the slight tremor in my hands. The main exhibit space seems like a really great place to bring younger children. The displays are interactive but simple enough for even toddlers to engage. There’s a 25-foot-long model of a snake that functions like a jungle gym for crawling over and through. It seems to be the biggest hit with the kids. In another room, the advertised “suspension bridge over a pit filled with JANUARY 28, 2016
live rattlesnakes” is a bit of a letdown for all but the youngest kids who’ve yet to figure out that all but two of the Plexiglass covered snakes on either side of the bridge aren’t real. The docent patiently reminds the children not to run, and parents dutifully instruct them not to tap on the glass. I wonder at the Egyptian motif in this room full of rattlesnakes—natives of the Americas. The sparsity and vagueness of interpretive text, in places, leaves something to be desired. But not so in the next room where I’ve found a wild-haired mannequin in a suit. He’s covered in snakes. There’s accompanying text this time. Ah, “fundamentalist Christians,” that makes sense, I think. The text reads that these religious groups “handle venomous serpents in a religious frenzy, believing their faith in God will protect them from harm.” The guy who started the movement in 1909 died of a rattlesnake bite in 1950. Four decades of zealously handling venomous snakes— that’s a pretty good run. I feel like I’ve learned a few things here today. I know that people the world over eat snakes—from reticulated pythons in China to rattlesnakes here in the States. I’d rather not have heard
I feel a strange sense of
elation and a warmness toward the little creature, but these feelings are accompanied by low-level
dizziness and the telltale stinging eyes that proceed tears.
about the cooking methods; I believe all animals deserve a humane death, and some of the recipes don’t fit the bill. What else? I’ve learned that the hognose snake (if a snake were going to be cute, it’d be this one) uses its nose to burrow in the ground in search of toads. And I’ve learned that kingsnakes are immune to the venom of the snakes they eat, including rattlesnakes, copperheads, and coral snakes. I walk back through the museum, softly humming “Crawling King Snake.”
Part two: a walk on the wild side As I make my way back into the first exhibit room, I see two young children—a boy and girl—each with a live snake. They’re between me and the front door. For a moment, I stand eyeing the emergency exit. But I find I’m strangely fascinated. They handle the snakes with such ease, gently helping littler children to hold them. I start snapping photos, not aware that I’m moving closer. As the two kids walk back through the exhibit, I realize that I’m following them to the room where the docent at
