Snake-o

I was just rocking out to Rolling Stones, and looked over at Raym and said,"I'm going to write a story called "Snake-o." He just laughed and said, "I love you.... oh, the creative process".
He knows I have a very random brain that roams, so I have to just go with it no matter where  I am, or whatever time it is. Come to think of it, I married one of those brains.

I hear him  muttering to the cats.... "You cats are Snake-o's." This only makes my fingers get busier typing. He is in the kitchen foraging for something, seriously just saying "snake-o " to himself.
He laughs every time he watches me writing a story.... two fingers. Only way I know how.

In the summer of '75,  I went backpacking with a group of people from my church. I had never been backpacking, barely hiking, but I had just graduated from 8th grade and was ready to do some serious roaming. I have always been an old soul. I think there was only one boy my age, everyone else was five to fifteen years older than me. It  was up in Sacramento and there was a lot of adjusting I had to do.
Also, I think my oldest sister went on this first backpacking trip with me.

I think if I had a clue of how far we had to hike ( I was one lazy swine kid), I am pretty sure I was whining in my head big time. Let's not talk about the fact that I had no idea about the bathroom situation. Never had really gone camping before..... hmmm. This did prove to be an interesting learning curve.
The best part of this trip was getting stung on my butt by several bees, and having one of the church fellows have a look see....  than a few more gathered round my now pulled down jeans to evaluate the situation. I was very relaxed by this,  more than I can say.


The gal pals and I were all laying out on this big  boulder on the lake.... it was very hot.
I am quite sure we slathered ourselves in baby oil as we fried in the sun.  Above the area where we were sunning was kind of a jumping off point to dive into the water. There were some very interesting characters on this trip, and being not 14 years old yet, I observed everything and everyone.
Especially secret  love affairs that were not supposed to be going on. Yep, that was my favorite.
What else was I going to do... no TV, no radio.... it was people watching time.

 Back to the gals and the boulder we were laying out on. We were all laughing, having a great time and suddenly this thing comes flying overhead. Wait, slow motion please. Did I just see what I saw?
A naked man just  skimmed over my head.... bopping with his business.

We all just started laughing our heads off.  Okay, I was fresh out of 8th grade... but even I caught on that this gent thought he was being seductive.  Pretty sure laughter was not the reaction he was expecting as his frankfurter flew proudly over a bunch of repressed Catholic girls heads.
So, true to my nature.... I named it,... hmmmm,  him.... "Snake-o". Made perfect sense.
That was that. He never had his original name back in our circle.  Poor Snake-o.
He was sweet on one particular lady friend in our group.... pretty sure she was particularly horrified.
Later that night Duckie.... (I can't claim title to that one, someone else named her) taught me bathroom tricks in the wild. Good times.