The Wild Ride

The Wild Ride

This story happened around fifty years ago, to my aunt Brenda Choate (Ponder) and her friend Linda Edwards. They were driving down 1547, the rural Kentucky road on which my grandparents lived. They came upon a bend in the road and did not make the turn. The real story is what happened after.

Brenda and Linda were driving down the road, in a little VW Beetle, when they came upon a sharp bend. I don’t know if they were going too fast, not paying attention, or had mechanical problems, but for what ever reason, they did not make the turn.

The farmer who owned the property had just checked his mail, and stepped away from the box. The girls flew past him, plowed through the mailbox, and went rolling down the hill, like a tumbleweed across the prairie.

An eccentric friend of the family, Howard Long, had been driving behind them, and saw the wreck. He quickly stopped and jumped out to help. He ran down the hill to where the car had stopped.

He helped them out of the car and seemed unhurt, but were scared and crying. As helped them up the hill, and back to his car, they continued to sob.  Howard was the softhearted type and always hated to see a girl cry, so he decided to try to get their mind off the accident.

When they reached the road, he went to his car and pulled out a jar. The girls were still sobbing and huddled in each others arms as Howard returned. He proudly proclaimed “Hey, look it what I got.” He then put the jar up to the girl’s faces.

Inside the jar was one of Howard’s pet rattlesnakes, hissing and striking the side of the jar, trying to get at the girls. They jumped back screaming and sobbing.

Just then my father arrived and stopped to see what was going on. The girls were sobbing and talking over each other, such that dad could not make head nor tail of the circumstances. Howard jumped in to explain what happened, and then said “To calm ‘em down I got my pet snake. It didn't seem to help at all!"