vituperation

Two years ago — to the figurative (and almost literal) day — I had an experience that I’ll never forget.

Each year, my company’s biggest customer has a picnic for all the people who work on their main project. For years the picnic was held down by the river on Redstone Arsenal, but three or four years back they started having it at the Monte Sano State Park picnic area.

My haunting grounds.

I have this weird issue (one of many) about eating when there are lots of people around. Groups of people already make me uncomfortable–

Strangely, doing something like getting up in front of 1000 people and giving a speech doesn’t faze me, but sitting around in a meeting with 10 people makes me feel ooky. Public speaking is like acting, in a way. You can remove yourself from the situation. Sitting around in a smaller group requires focus.

And focus means you can become the center of attention in a heartbeat, which is a Bad Thing^TM.

I blame my issues with social situations on the fact that I was fat for a large part of my life. Hell, I blame most everything on that, so what’s one more? It’s a good scapegoat. My discomfort in groups comes (I believe, anyway) from the years of feeling like everyone was staring at me, thinking goddamn, look at how fat that guy is. The reality, of course, is that they were probably just glancing at me and my mind was doing the rest.

But still.

It’s not a bad dysfunction, actually pretty minor. I can deal with groups, I just don’t like to. I don’t get in a panic, don’t get all weirded out and catatonic. I just feel like my face is hot, like I’m perpetually embarrassed.

It’s my cross to bear, I guess.

–and if you put food into the equation, it ratchets my unease up a notch or two.

I did, in fact, eat at the picnic one year, and lived to tell about it. But only once.

Two years ago at the picnic, I hung around and made small talk until it was time to eat, then I headed for the trails. My experience came just off the South Plateau Trail, as I started down the McKay Hollow Trail. I saw something I’d never ever seen in the wild before, and it blew me away.

I came face to face with the one living thing around here that — in the wrong situation — could actually be a threat to my life. And I was caught flatfooted, with no camera. All I could do at the time was call my wife on my cell and tell her about it; I let her witness it from afar, as it were.

I was mostly a winter hiker in those days, rarely venturing out in the warm months precisely because of what I encountered on the trail. My first thought when I saw it, humorously, was this is why I don’t hike in the summer.

After the hike, I went back to the picnic and told people, some of whom made intimations that I was making things up. And I had no proof, no way of proving that I wasn’t talking out of my ass.

For two years I’ve hiked year-round, taking my camera each time in hopes that I might have another such encounter. I’ve seen plenty of neat things, and taken plenty of cool pictures. Turtles, birds, squirrels, raccoons, goats, lizards, and more snakes than you can shake a stick at.

Every one of them nice, and special in their own way, but not what I longed to see.

I skipped the picnic last year, opting to stay at the office and work the day. This year’s picnic was yesterday, and I went to it, taking some stunningly good caramel nut brownies of my own invention. I got there early and helped get everything set up, then stood around and made chitchat until it was time to eat.

Trail time for me.

I took off toward the hiker’s parking lot, my plan being to head down the other side of the mountain so I could come back up and over the south plateau and down through McKay Hollow. About halfway between the picnic area and the hiker’s parking lot, I heard it.

When you hike as much as I do, you learn to differentiate the various sounds of animals on the ground. A squirrel makes one kind of noise running across the forest floor, and a chipmunk makes another. Lizards have their own unique sound, as do snakes.

I heard a snake sliding through the leaves, just off to my left. I froze and looked down. There, moving slowly alongside the trail just about five feet in front of me, was my holy grail. My serendipity, exactly two picnics from the last one, was on the ground so close I could poke him with my walking stick. Four feet long, and as big around as my upper arm. Pure badass, lying in the leaves.

Crotalus horridus. The timber rattler.

This is EXACTLY why I hike in the summer, I thought, and reached for my camera. As I drew near, he took a defensive posture and warned me to stay away.

Why yes, I was closer than I should’ve been.
Isn’t he stunning?
You can see his his full glory here.

And I got a little video, too. Go hear him telling me to back off.

I watched him for about ten minutes. A couple of other people stopped on the way by, and left with far more rattlesnake information than they probably ever wanted to know, because I was prattling in my excitement. Finally, I hooked him with my walking stick (goddamn, he was heavy) and moved him well off the trail in case one of those “the only good snake is a dead snake” idiots was in the vicinity.

I won’t tell you how I squealed when he struck my walking stick, because I’m far too studly for such things.

I feel as though my life is now more complete.