Summer Work and Snakes
submitted by: H. Roice Nelson, Jr.
-113.6958029 37.5079812 1969
When Spring Quarter of 1969 was over, I went home to work at Nelson Meat Packing Plant and on the farm, as I had all through High School. I had helped drive Mom and Sara to Bowling Green to obtain her M.B.A. (Masters in Business Administration), and I flew out and helped drive them home. I remember going to Mount Rushmore and stopping to see Mom's brother Glenn in Rapid City, South Dakota. In those days, Glenn was a beer distributor. I also remember Mom had us stop in Carthage, so I could see some early LDS Church History. It was the wrong Carthage, in the wrong state. At the time, I did not know Carthage was where Joseph and his brother Hyrum Smith, one of my wife Andrea's ancestors, were martyred.
After getting home from Ohio, I worked on the farm, did some work at Calf Springs Ranch, seven miles south of Enterprise, and worked in Nelson Meat Packing Plant. I enjoyed going out to The Ranch. I would saddle a horse, put my 22 in a saddle rifle holster, and ride up in the mountains to fix fence. Once I came down, galloped across the meadow to the spring by the orchard, jumped off of the horse and got down on all fours to get a drink from the spring. There was a rattlesnake sunning himself on the volcanic rock overlooking the spring. My horse saw it, jumped back, pulled the reins out of my hand, and I jumped up and caught him. Then I saw the rattlesnake. I was shaking so bad, it took me several shots to kill the snake. I skinned the snake, dried the skin, and placed the meat in the back freezer at Nelson Meat Plant, with the plan to make soup out of. I believe this is the snake skin hanging up in my office now.
One unexpected result was I found out Gerald Black, one of the hired hands at Nelson Meat Packing Plant, was afraid of snakes, even dead ones. Gerald was well over 6 foot tall and could pick up a half a beef at one time. He only seemed to know one word, and it started with "f." The rest of the summer, if he ever started to give me a bad time, I would go get the snake out of the freezer and he would run away, like a little girl. Sweet revenge, and I got away with it because I was the boss’ son.
Another time at the Ranch, I found a nest of little tiny water snakes. I caught them, put them in a box, and sent them to my fraternity brother, Bill (William Bunker) Hansen, to let loose in the Tri-Delta Sorority House next to Phi Sigma Kappa. Bill went on a mission that summer, and I went on one the fall of 1970, and so it was 1973 before I stopped to see him, and find out what happened. I went by his house, and his Mom answered the door. She saw me, recognized me, and said "YOU!!!" Turns out she opened Bill's mail and had half a dozen little water snakes crawling on her kitchen floor, with her on the kitchen table screaming for help. I do not think I was ever forgiven for mailing that package.