Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 5:51 PM
Subject: memories of India. Sherrill, & cobras ... from Art Sanford
Arthur Sanford <arthalie@webtv.net> wrote:
Subject: more memories
a couple little books from a friend of those years in India (I was going to say from an old friend then thought that would not be nice to call Sherrill "old" so put it that way) will say tho that she was one of those lovable, cute, exciting little girls in our Church in India whom, we grew to love deeply. and in her book she mentions "cobras"
ah how well I remember some of those. the gardener and I were cleaning out the garage one day and I stooped down to pick up some boards when the gardener yelled loudly "Snake" it was a cobra raising his ugly head up right where I was going to stoop down--well I didn't stoop--i jumped --after landing about 15 feet away I got nerve enough to grab a big stick and the gardener also got a big stick and we took care of that cobra. another day a friend whom we called Wiggie and I had been to Midnapore on our cycles and coming back were riding along --I was bit ahead of him and looking back at him when he yelled that word: samp" I looked ahead in time to see this big cobra stretched across the road-- I just pulled my feet up off the pedals and ran over it and then got on FAST--Wiggie did the same and we didn't stop to see if that snake was mad or not. one day we stopped in a village and there was a man sitting there --he had something in a big bag --so I got out of the car and walked around it to see what he had in that bag and as I came around the car well he had opened the bag and out of it had come the biggest cobra I ever saw- and it was headed toward me - well I beat all records getting back into the car and shutting the door with a decided BANG. I think I shared this with some of you but here again: I pulled the church bell a bit to hard one day and it slipped off the base So the next day the gardener and I went up in the belfry to fix it - well I needed something to use ad a brace and there were some tiles there in the corner so picked up one and started to reach back when the gardener yelled and there on the next tile was a small cobra-now for me a cobra is a cobra no matter its size,, so I went out one of the four windows in the belfry and he went out another -- fortunately the two we went out were over the roof of the church --otherwise it would have been about a 25 foot drop to the ground. we finally got courage to get back in too
see about that cobra but it was gone -never saw it again (really didn't look too hard for it) but next time I had to go up there I was careful
to have a good stout stick And to look before picking up anything. glad there are no cobras in Atherton. night --love to you all Art
7/31/2002