CHOOSING HAPPINESS

FACE-to-FANG The bone-chilling warning rattle of a rattlesnake underfoot instantly shoots the venom of terror into the hearts of most people. But there was a time when my reaction to such an event was a mental “happy dance”! For me, the rattle of a rattlesnake was like the ringing of a dinner bell. I had walked into the Rocky Mountain wilderness, alone and with no gun or food, to experience hard-core survival. No one knew where I was – including myself. I had no maps, no backup, no help, and no possibility of rescue. At the top of my daily “to-do” list was: Find something to eat. I ate whatever I could find, catch, dig, or outrun. I wrenched edible roots out of the ground using crudely fashioned digging sticks, my knife, and my hands. I foraged greens, leaves and berries wherever I found them. I occasionally waded into streams and rivers to “tickle” the bellies of fish, rendering them sluggish to the point where they could be scooped up and tossed ashore. I whittled “throwing sticks” to toss at fleeing field mice and voles to stop them or change their direction until I could catch up to them and grab them by hand. When all else failed, I would simply find an ant hill, plop down beside it, and scarf up a few dozen live ants. So anytime I found something to eat, I celebrated. And I was happiest when I could find my most reliable source of protein – rattlesnakes. Nonpoisonous snakes were too fast and evasive for me to catch. But rattlesnakes were slow and tended to stand their ground. Whenever a rattler confronted me, I would slowly reach behind me to stealthily grab the machete strapped to my back. Then I would step forward to meet my next meal face-to-fang. I had learned a few lessons vicariously about dealing with such snakes. During a summer spent fighting forest fires in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, I had noticed that the right hand of one of my fellow firefighters was scarred and deformed. When I knew him well enough to ask about it, he explained that he had watched his father many times dispatching rattlesnakes that showed up near his home in the mountains. His father would stand in front of the snake, place the barrel of his .22-caliber rifle near the head of the snake, and start slowly waving the barrel back and forth like a snake charmer. The snake would start swaying back and forth, following the movement of the barrel. His father simply pulled the trigger at any time during this process. The barrel was invariably perfectly lined up with the snake’s head, and the bullet was almost always instantly lethal. Thinking that he knew what he was doing, my friend once tried this process himself with his own gun. It didn’t work. He was bitten and the poison inflicted a great deal of permanent damage to his hand. When I asked what went wrong, he replied: “Two things. First, never wait longer than two cycles of movement to shoot. Second, make sure you are using a long-barreled rifle, not a pistol!” I also learned a few practical tips from old-timers who had spent years in those mountains. You have to be aware of the position of the snake as you approach it. Its body position determines how much range it has when trying to strike you. A coiled snake is most dangerous. A three-foot snake can almost instantly strike a target two feet away. Likewise, a fleeing snake can instantly strike backwards at anything pursuing it. Consequently the safest position for handling a rattlesnake is facing it with its body uncoiled on the ground and already fully extended toward you. The trick is in safely manipulating the snake into this position. Usually I simply grabbed the longest nearby stick and tried to position the snake to my best advantage – provoking him to uncoil and strike at me, then pinning his head with the stick and decapitating him with my machete or knife. When nothing was quickly available, I had to resort to using my machete like a stick. But the relatively short length of the blade always made this a bit dicey. And if I got bitten, I was on my own in the wilds with no help or medical assistance. The consequences could be severe. When people learn that I have eaten many dozens of rattlesnakes, they always want to know what rattlesnake tastes like. And everyone’s presumptive guess seems to be “chicken.” My disappointing answer: I don’t have the slightest idea! I ate snakes under primitive survival conditions, not at a fully equipped kitchen or restaurant. Once the average snake has been skinned and eviscerated, you can see the obvious: there is precious little meat. A snake is almost all backbone and countless scores of tiny ribs. I quickly learned that the only thing that made sense in my circumstance was to toss the snake directly onto the coals of a fire and burn it until it was soft enough that I could consume everything – bones and all! So for me, snake tastes like charred bones. Some habits are hard to break. Several years later after I thought I had successfully assimilated back into civilization, I shared a meal with some friends in their home. They had two young sons who sat directly across the table from me as we dined on fried chicken. As the meal progressed, both boys slowly stopped eating, just silently staring at me bug-eyed. Their eyes kept getting bigger and bigger as I continued eating. I couldn’t imagine what was happening. It turned out that they had never seen anyone consume an entire chicken – bones and all. LESSON LEARNED for HAPPINESS: The way you feel about something (e.g., “happiness”) is not determined so much by the “facts” of the situation itself as by how you choose to frame it – the story you tell yourself about what is happening.