The man who killed the copperhead snakes!

I don't remember how old I was exactly, but I had to have been at least five. I was sitting on our back porch with my dad. Craig was about three years old and was playing in our back yard next to our sandpile (enclosed by four old logs). Suddenly, Craig let out a loud scream and began hobbling toward us. I, somewhat foolishly, think I  said to dad that he had stepped on a pinecone. But when Craig got to where dad and I were sitting on the carport steps, he held out his foot for us to see. There on his foot, about a quarter of an inch apart, were two small red dots.

The rest was all a blur, but I later found out that Craig had been bitten by a copperhead snake. I also learned later that he had been bitten by a baby copperhead. Baby copperheads are more venomous than the adult copperheads; greater chance of survival for the babies. Very fortunately, even though the copperhead's mouth had widened all the way around Craig's foot (evidenced by the two red dots) only one fang had penetrated. Even that amount of venom had made Craig quite literally "deathly" sick because, as our mother told us, all the way to the Mooresville doctor she could see the blue color advancing up Craig's leg. Scared her to death, needless-to-say. Mom said that when they finally found someone who could get them a doctor that person said, "Well...sumpm' sure bit 'im!" Craig recovered from the bite and even, mom told us, leaned up and kissed the doctor on the cheek in relief and happiness. Though he wasn't consciously thinking it, he probably subconsciously knew that this doctor had saved his life. We also later learned that if both of the baby copperhead's fangs had penetrated Craig's foot, the remaining half of the snake's venom would have likely killed him.

Just before my parents had moved to Davidson in 1960, Lake Norman had been created to furnish power to the area (Duke Power) and provide beauty and recreation. When the lake water filled the lower land, which had been the natural habitat of many forms of wildlife, that wildlife moved upland to escape the water. The copperhead snakes were among that wildlife. Some of them escaped to the woods behind our back yard.

We experienced two more incidents with copperheads after Craig's encounter, but no one was bitten. My mom killed two on our backyard patio. She killed them with an old scythe. Nervously recalling, but with some slight humor, she said while she was chopping one up, the other was striking at the blade!! Another incident also involved Craig when he mistook a copperhead for a bird that the snake was preparing to strike. He ran right past the copperhead pointing to the bird, narrowly missing a second bite! My mom said the copperhead was probably too focused on the bird to turn its attention to Craig as he ran past. Whew!! (But who knows, even if Craig had been bitten again, perhaps he would have been immune to second bite!)

I don't remember how much more time passed, but suddenly I was aware that my dad had hired someone to hunt down and clean out our back woods of any more copperhead snakes. The man's name was Kaiser Brawley and he was African-American (we said "black" * in those days; the phrase African-American had not yet been adopted) and probably in his late seventies or early eighties. He was a tall, thin man and "drove" an old wooden cart pulled by a off-whitish mule named "Jeff." He was nearly toothless and what teeth he did have were unevenly spaced in his mouth. He was very focused, even stern-looking when he held the reins to steer the cart, but he was quite friendly and had a hearty laugh. I remember hearing him come up our gravel road, Dogwood lane, from the nearest paved road, Grey Road, urging his mule ahead with a soft jerk on the reins and two clicks of his tongue, "Tsch, tsch," and then with the gentle exhortation, "Git on Jeff!" He always brought at least one or two small black boys with him in the cart to help with the work.

I speculate that my dad hired Kaiser Brawley because he was famous in the area for being able to kill copperheads (and maybe other kinds of snakes as well) with his bare hands; he may have also been the relative of one of our baby-sitters and they recommended him. I never saw him do it, but according to what my mom had heard (or actually saw for herself) he would grab the copperhead by the tail and swiftly slap its head against a rock! That takes quite some nerve, but I guess if you kill enough of them that way, you get good at it. I learned from my parents that he killed 13 copperheads in our back yard. I don't know how many copperheads escaped this fate, but we never had another incident with copperhead snakes after Kaiser Brawley was finished.


*Incidentally, though I pointed out our use of the term "black" for "African-American" in the 1960s and '70s, I would also like to remind the reader that "black" was considered the politically correct term at that time (even though the phrase "politically correct" had not yet been coined). Out of respect, and because I find the "N" word among the most repugnant of the slang words, I will not write the "N" word in full. But it is curious to note that "black" was the accepted and preferred term then. I definitely heard some people use the "N" word, but no one who was educated and sensitive to anyone's feelings. "African-American" is now, of course, the politically correct term instead of "black." For the purposes of the nuance of the culture of the time in recounting the story, I continued to use the term "black" in place of "African-American" in describing the boys who worked with Kaiser. I was raised by parents who treated African-Americans with love and respect. The term "black" or even "negro" would have been terms they both used out of respect as with any other interesting aspect about the person, personally or culturally.