A Little Different

[mbarker]

I was watching one of the local kids go running up into the weeds near our housing. The tangle was nearly as tall as he was, and he was dressed for the heat in shorts and t-shirt. For some reason, it struck me that at least where I grew up in Maryland, running into that kind of weeds would be asking for an encounter with poison ivy or one of its relatives.

So I asked and everyone got round-eyed. Poison plants? How scary! Will they kill you? So I explained about poison ivy itches and swellings.

And then they reminded me and each other that while Japan apparently doesn't have poison ivy or similar irritants, they have poisonous snakes and millipedes (or maybe centipedes - way too many legs, brightly colored, and big. I've helped someone who had been bitten, and their foot swelled up for a couple of days. Evil!) I haven't encountered the snakes, but people say they are very poisonous, and a mere rumor of one earlier this summer sent the campus guards out combing through the field where someone said they had seen one. At least in Maryland, the rattlesnakes and such (cotton mouth?) were pretty much out in the woods, not down in the residential parts.

And I know I never heard of poisonous centipedes!

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

At least in Maryland, the rattlesnakes and such (cotton mouth?) were pretty much out in the woods, not down in the residential parts.

Oh, I dunno. We saw copperheads pretty often down among the houses in Baltimore County. And the water moccasins were utterly brazen. I remember my father telling me that rattlesnakes and copperheads ought certainly to be respected, but he objected to killing them on sight as so many people did, because they were "working snakes" and left to their own devices didn't attack people. However, water moccasins, according to him, were "just plain mean."

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Copperheads! That was the name I was groping for. Thanks!

Up in Damascus (beyond Gaithersburg) we saw them in the woods, sometimes rustling away in the leaves, but they mostly stayed away from the houses. And my father also said to let them live, they helped farmers. Make noise so that they know you are coming, and don't trap them.

Rattlesnakes were out west (New Mexico) with that grandfather, and water moccasins were what they talked about at one uncle's place in South Carolina. I don't think I ever heard of them in the Damascus area.

Thanks for reading!