
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 16, 1993                   TAG: 9309300280
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

A STRUGGLE OF WHICH LEGENDS ARE NOT MADE

ONE MORNING early this summer, I looked out the kitchen window into the pine trees and said, ``What's that?'' For something lay in the pine straw that hadn't lain there the day before.

``Looks like a snakeskin to me,'' said the man of the house.

As, indeed, it was. About 3 feet long, still so fresh it felt like taffeta or heavy silk in my hand.

``Too close to the house,'' I said.

``Probably just a blacksnake,'' he assured me.

``Too close to the house,'' I repeated.

A couple of days later, a blacksnake fled under the lilac bushes when I drove by on the mower. That same afternoon, I saw the snake slide under the house.

``Don't worry about blacksnakes,'' everyone says. ``They keep away other snakes, the dangerous ones. They keep the mice down.''

People who say this, I'll warrant, aren't talking about snakes that slide in under their houses.

So the next time I saw this snake, a couple of weeks later, I told myself, ``You should kill it.''

I stood there looking at the sn

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by CNB