Last scene:

Peggy will tell you to this day that when I used to get myself in trouble she would give me two options: yard work or restriction and that I always chose the yard work.

So I’m watering roses and it’s hot and I’m drinking water out of the hose and I’m right by the front door and I’m sipping from a silver stream of water when I see a twig of a snake on the porch.

Story of my life. Though usually, they were bigger. Every now and then you saw a small one.

The damn thing has one rattle. One. Rattle.

So I drop the hose underneath the roses and remembering how frantic I was at six when I yelled SNAKE! RATTLER! into the cabin and knowing I’m ten years older now, I calmly walk around the house, through the backdoor, and into Peggy’s art studio where she is painting. I explain about the little snake.

At this point, we were always calling over boys from my school, friends of mine, to do things for us. Things like this. Things like this and moving wood piles and things like that. Man things. We didn’t have them do it cause we couldn’t do these things our self–it’s because it was more fun this way. Oops.

So we called one of the Larson twins. John I think and John, using the ol’ shovel technique pops the baby rattlers head off in one clean shot and I still can’t get over the thing having just, one, rattle.

There’s talk about oh baby rattlers are actually more dangerous cause they don’t know when to stop pumping venom and Peggy thanks John Larson and I never see a rattler again.

And I never. See a rattler. Again.