Everything except the buzzard

As noted before, Mom was my greatest cheerleader and a gentle critic. As all good parents do, she found need to correct, punish, discipline and express reservations and disappointments. She also looked for the good, even when it came to things she'd prefer to not experience.

Ma and I were over at Shirley and Elton's place in Athens once day. We lived in Athens for a while. Shoan, my cousin whom I called Pooh, and I were outside. I was maybe 4. A snake was in the driveway. I think I told Shoan to stand back and I charged up and stomped the snake to death in bare feet.

The snake was red, yellow and black banded. For those who do not know, the coral snake (a species of cobra and the most venemous snake in the US) and the King snake share the same colors, just in a different pattern. You tell 'em apart with a simple rhyme.

Red to black
Fangs they lack
Red to yellow
Kill a fellow

Coral snakes do not have fangs, but the rhyme works. If red and yellow bands touch coral snake. Red and black touch, King. Coral snakes are also not supposed to live north of the Fall Line according to biologists. According to biologists, canebrake rattlers are not supposed to live South of the Fall Line. How that big canebrake I ate years ago got to Turner County is a mystery.

Shirley and mom panicked. She had to make siue I was not snake bit. Shane, Shoan's older brother, collected the deceased and stored in a jar. He had it for years. May still have it.

A few years later down on the farm, Rodney and his family lived in the house in our front yard. Rodney and I were inseparable while he lived there. One day we spied an oak snake in a pecan tree. We got a ladder, knocked the snake out and killed it. With Rodney's dad Roger right behind us laughing his head off. We burst in saying "We killed a rattlesnake!" Mom was, well, less than enthusiastic but still proud of Roger and me.

I had a Daisy lever action BB gun, not a Red Ryder. It packed enough punch to kill small birds. I proudly walked into the house one morning holding one of the small birds that showed up every year. I held it by one of the toes. Mom congratulated me on my first kill as a hunter.

She was the first person I called on the phone when I killed my first deer. I was in Alabama at the time.

"Hey Ma."

"You got one!" she said, automatically knowing I'd killed a deer. She had that momsense thing.

"Nope. Two!"

"I am so thrilled! Save me some," she said.

Her favorite meat was wild rabbit. She was genuinely excited any time I came home with some hasenpfeffer.

One day we had a meal of mixed game, birds, rabbit and probably others. "Benjamin did all this," she said proudly as we sat down to the meal. Well, she cooked it. I killed all the critters we ate.

She put up with all kinds of critters in her freezer, land, air and water critters. She drew the line at one.

The buzzard was just too much.

Yeah. I shot a buzzard and threw it in the freezer. I wanted to show it to my best bud Rusty. Note here I have no sense of smell. It was burned out when I walked through a cloud of anhydrous ammonia.

Ma smelled it as I walked through the house to go plop down in my chair.

Mom did not cuss very much. She used up a year's worth as she told me to get that ______ ______ ______ _______ buzzard the _____ ________ ______ out of her freezer and take a shower. She threatened to burn the clothes I was wearing. Years later she told the story and laughed about it.

Whatever accomplishments I manage to achieve from now on, I'm going to reach for the phone to call her. Then I'll remember she won't answer any more.