On a farm a teenager found himself right in the middle of every thing that went on wether it was planting, harvesting hay or grain, or taking care of the livestock. Many stories come to mind . Our farm buildings were situated in the nort h west corner of the farm and a steep gully passed all the way around the buildings so that everything going to the field or coming to the barn had to go down the hill and then up. In those days horses was the only source of power. In orde r to bring a load of hay or grain from the field to the barn meant that the load had to travel the hill so to brake the wagons down on the hill and relieve the horses we would fasten one end of a chain to the bed piece of the wagon and wrap the other end around the steel wagon wheel so that the wheel had to slide "brake"as it went down hill. At the bottom it had to be removed. The neighbors came to our farm with there wagons equipped with the chain ready to be used . The fir st time I was assigned to chain up the wagons at the top of the hill and to unchain at the bottom I was only about nine or ten years old. My brother Gordon being three years older got the job of shoveling the grain back in the bins. In a days threshing at least twenty or more wagons had to be chained up. Every neighbor had a different way to lock his wagons wheels and if it wasn't done correctly it was possible to do great damage to the wheel of the wagon or if the chain should come unhooked on the way dow n hill it could mean a disaster for the horses and the wagon. It didn't seem like a lot of responsibility at the time but now when I look back I can see so many things that could have gone wrong for instance, the horses could have jumped as I was crawling underneath and run over me. Fortunately all went well but I can still remember how boring the task was to just sit on the hill all day long . I wanted to be up by the threshing machine and watch the action there.
STORY # 2
Because my dad owned and operated the threshing machine and my older brothers would go along to exchange help I was left at home to do the chores. at the time we were milking about twenty cows . There were usually four of us to do them but at threshing time it was not uncommon for the threshing to continue until dark. This one time the weather was hot and the possibility of rain so they continued rather late. I brought up the cows and started milking , by the time the others got home I was on the last cow. Milking by hand was easy for me but to a twelve year old twenty cows was a little much O well it only happened once or twice.
STORY # 3
By the time I was fifteen I was begging my dad to be a part of the exchanging of help with the neighbors at threshing time but he kept putting me off saying that I was to young and my time would come. One day they were scheduled to be at Hanus [John} Seiferts in the middle of the after noon. Hanus was always short of help on the threshing crew so my dad told me to show up at his place at three in the after noon and help out. This was big stuff for me I was finally going to do a mans job. When I arrived the first wagons were already to go to the field so Hanus told me to pitch bundles on to them from the grain shocks . I pitched on one load and as there was another empty wagon I pitched that one on too. The first one went easy but by the second my hands were starting to blister and those bundles seemed to take on extra weight as the afternoon progressed. We finished loading all the wagons by the time the threshing machine got there so we went up to the barn. When the first load pulled up to the machine to unload I was asked to spike pitch bundles into the threshing machine. Normally the spike pitcher gets on the wagon with the driver and alternate pitching bundles with him. After a load was finished he would have a rest time until the next load was unloaded. I got up and pitched the first load, the blisters on my hands became much larger and needless to say very much more sore. The next load pulled up but there was no one to spike pitch it off so I crawled u p and continued through the next five loads in a row. The blister on my hands were as big as quarters and I was so tired that I could hardly move but I didn't dare complain as I wanted to be a man and I had asked for the chance. So ended my first day hel ping on a threshing crew.
Story #4
In the morning it was our policy to ask my dad if there was some task for us to do that day, If not we would head for the woods or Crockery Creek to spend a most enjoyable day. One time when I wasn't given a job to do I thought that I would make up my own. We had cleared off some woods in preparation to clearing it for crops the stumps were still there but we had cut the wood into stove length pieces and left them in a pile of several cords. It was in the middle of the summer and there was no reason to bring the wood to the house at that time but my thoughts were that it would have to be done sometime and that day I had the time so why not do it. Without asking permission I harnessed the horses hooked up to our old wagon a nd hay rack and headed for the wood pile. The wood was heavy and I had no idea how much it weighed and the hay rack could hold a large load so I filled it . Way over loading the old wagon. I started for home with my load driving between the stumps to get away from the woods and as you can guess I turned to short and one of the wheels climb up the side of a stump and slide off buckling the wheel and dropping the load to the ground. I had to go away and leave it all the time wondering what my dad would say . I was expecting the worst but he hardly said a word. Because the wagon was old and the skane was of an odd size my dad couldn't find a replacement wheel and we ended up buying the all steel wheel wagon that still sits out back of the green barn to this day. That is another story and I'll deal with it later.
Story #5
During my senior year in high school I had gone out for track to run the half mile. My goal that year was to get my time down to about 2.03 or 4. There were other boys as good or better than I so the competition was fierce. We were milki ng twenty some cows at the time and all of the winters manure was wheeled out of the barn daily onto a huge pile. Before spring work could begin all of that had to be hauled to the field and spread. It was all done by hand as no one had ever heard of a ma nure loader or scoop in those days . It was all done by hand with a pitch fork. I could see that my presence on the track team would not be missed so I asked the coach to let me off early so as to get a head start on the work load at home. I wou ld get home by three o'clock and harness the horses and start hauling manure. In those days the spreader only held about sixty bushel but to pitch it on by hand that was a chore. By dark I managed to get five to six loads out. This went fine unti l one night while removing the harness from the horses one of them stepped on my arch. That very defiantly finished my track career. Incidentally it was one time that my dad was pleased with my initiative and he gave me hig h praise.
Story #6
During the summer of 1935 between my junior and senior year in high school we had finished cutting the wheat field and had threshed it out. The grain binder had been left in the field to await the ripening of the oa ts. The canvases had been removed to prevent them from weathering. My dad was operating the threshing machine every day and was seldom home so when the oat field was ready to cut he was not available. That year our oats was on the hills now known as the thorn bush hills. They were a series of hills that only a sure footed horse could maneuver. After we started farming with a tractor we retired those hills as being to steep to safely farm with wheels. When oats are ready to harvest it is importan t to be there as they deteriorate very fast. My dad was busy and he couldn't" be there so I decided that I'd give a try. I had never hooked up a three horse hitch in my life but it was necessary on those hills. Neither had I ever operated a grain binder in my life. There were levers to do this and that so I would find out the hard way. The first hill that we went over the binder rocked forward and drove the sickle into the ground and I had to stop and raise the leveling lever, a real task if you d on't do it on time. I don't know how that lever lasted without breaking off for all the pressure that had to be applied. Next we were going up a very steep hill and the Hame strap broke that holds the harness to the horses collar and the harness slipped off the back of the horse. In the confusion the horses backed down to the bottom of the hill and into a fence breaking a part of the binder. I tied them up and went back to the barn getting a new strap and salvaging the broken par t from an old binder that was being used for parts. In the end I had accomplished in four days what could easily have been done in less than a half day on level ground. It wasn't a very pretty job and my dad didn't even know that I had been in the field. The greatest praise came to me from an old Sweed who had worked for my dad years before and knew the field. He was there when we threshed the oats and his comment was that it was the best job of cutting oats on those hills that he had ever seen. To me that was real praise and it turned out that one time that I started something on my own that it didn't end in a disaster.
Story #7
The year had to be about 1937 or 38 making me about 18 or 19 years old. We were scheduled to thresh at the Fritz farm that day. We were not milking any cows at that time so I arrived early, thinking that I would have a rare opportunity to work on the grain hauling that day. To my dismay I was assigned the Fritz team of horses and wagon and was sent down the river bank about two miles to load grain. Three pitchers accompanied me, Frank Merkins , Paul Czyinder and John Dix Harry. We were the first team to leave the barn. Farming the river bank meant many small fields scattered here and there where ever enough dry ground could be found to support a field. Some patches were more than a quarter mile apart and were not visible from one to the next. The bundles of grain would often be marsh hay with a few heads of grain sticking out the top .We arrived at the field about two miles from the barn. No other wagons were coming so Paul climb up on the back of the load an d I on the front with the other two pitching on. It wasn't long before the load was filled. but no other wagons showed up I guess that they had become lost going so far and had stopped off at a field closer to the barn. We kept on loading saying that there was plenty of room up in the air , The result was that we had put on a gigantic load, so high that the pitchers had to throw the bundles in the air and Paul and I would reach over the side of the load to catch them. After finishing Paul slide o ff the back leaving me with the task of getting it to the threshing machine. The River bank does not have any hills or gullies, but there were several washouts and ruts along the way. I was driving as carefully as possible and had negotiat ed most of the way to the barn, only one more washout. Suddenly timbers was cracking and boards splintering and the loaded tipped over on its side. I had to go away and leave it. More than two wagons were necessary to get it to the barn. A good load of quality grain might have about twenty plus bushels on it . My dad kept track and said that there were over thirty six bushels of poor bundles on it. He was not pleased with me and I received one of the few lectures that he ever gave me. I was told that Mr. Fritz was not very happy either.
Story #8
The wagon that my dad bought after I had broken the wheel of the old one with a load of wood, was all steel wheels and was much lower to the ground than the old high wooden wheel ones, but it had a very round bolster and if your load was not balanc ed perfectly it would lean over to one side. At that time it seemed that every one of the neighbors requested that we bring a team and wagon when we exchanged help. My experience in loading bundles was very limited at that time and I brought up so me very unattractive specimens. Sometimes even losing a corner of the load. On several occasions I think that the other teamsters were deliberately trying to put something over on the fresh kid. If the field was hilly or had gulli es they would arrange it so that I would have to go down into the side hill and load there leaving me a certain number of shocks of grain so that my whole load would be put on a side hill. and most often they left me with to many shocks so as to overload the wagon all the time they loaded up on the level ground. I wonder if they laughed all the way to the barn. Each teamster had his own way of loading bundles so it was possible to glance at a load and be able to tell whose load it was. L.D. Vieb rock could bring up the almost perfect load the sides were square and straight , not flaring out or peaked up in the middle, others started out at the bottom and came in to look like a pointed hay stack. My loads started out good at the bottom but flared out half way up and then were drawn in at the top.
SCHOOL DAYS.
When in the eighth grade my teacher was Mrs Easterly {my aunt Ethel} we were assigned to write an essay. I can no longer remember what the topic was. My paper was not what you could call a masterpiece by any means It had eraser smudges and just about every thing else wrong with it. The teacher took one look at it and called me in. She lowered the boom on me saying that she would not even correct such a messy paper. that I was to take it home and do a complete rewrite job an d bring in a better paper the next day. I went home and went to work. The result was even good in my estimation. and I had enjoyed doing the story. The teacher gave me an "A". After words I saw her showing it to the other teachers. It sho wed me that with a little effort I could write essays and short stories and get a good mark.
It is now more than sixty years later and I was going through the several shoe boxes of clippings that my mother had cut out of the local papers and I found three stories that I had written while in my first two years of high school. Our teacher h ad a practice of taking the best essays and putting them with the school news in the Coopersville Observer. One was written as a freshman and the other two as a sophomore. My grandson who is in the eighth grade now gave some of the stories that he has writ en. His sentence structure and spelling and the organization of his essay makes my efforts of years ago look a little puny. I hope that they don't bore you. { This must have referred to the days when the automobile were first invented.}
Nunica Mich. June 31 1932
Dear Junior;
Boy, I'll bet that you wish that you were with me yesterday. We went for a ride in a new genuine" horseless carriage." It had two cylinders and when it was going fast it sounded like a motor boat. Its wheels were made so that it l eft a clearance of about twenty two inches underneath the car. They were like bicycle tires enlarged. The motor was under the seat where the driver sat.
Say they have a new system of steering the automobile now. they use a wheel instead of a stick. When you wish to go to the right, you turn he wheel to the right, and if you want to go to the left , you turn it to the left. It sure is easy to st eer it that way. The driver could even steer with one hand while going fifteen miles an hour.
Dad said that we were going to have a ride in one, so we invited the old man that lives next door to go along. You know how funny he is about going fast. Well at first he didn't want to go, but finally he consented. The man showed us the car and how it worked, then we got in, while he started the motor, and after some delay we started out. Our neighbor was surprised at how easy it started to move. We gained speed, until the barometer or thermometer or whatever it is calle d, registered twenty-three miles per an hour. We passed old Dr, Brown and his horse and buggy. He had been going at full speed. You know that they are the fastest horses in town. We sure were going some when suddenly our neighbor's hat blew off. He started yelling whoa. The driver stopped and went back and got it for him. We all enjoyed the ride, and I wish that you been there with your jokes.
Yours truly
Clinton Peterson
Back then the teacher would give us the assignment for the essay. I'd go home and sit down on the right side of a cow place my head in her flank and put a pail between my knees and by the time I had milked my number of cows my story was usu ally thought out. and I would go to the house and by the light of a kerosene lamp write the story.
Description of accuracy
Before us was a lake about a quarter mile long and 150 yards wide. At the far end of the lake was a small stream filling up the one steady square mile of the lake. Around the mouth of the stream grew up cattails which were not yet browne d by the rays of the sun. Along the opposite shore the weeping willows held their long drooping figures far over the water/ Suddenly from amongst the willows a snipe dove into the water, returning with his supper in his bill. Before us on the edge of the water grew water lilies on which frogs would sit and sun themselves and occasionally pick a fly from the air with their lighting speed tongues . As a mossback turtle crawled his way along the bank the frogs disappea red among the lilies . The sun reflected the clouds of the heavens on the lake as though it were a mirror . The quietness of the lake would be interrupted when a trout would spring as if from glass into the air , after some o bject near the surface.
Behind us grew a great elm whose branches seemed as if they reached the clouds . Among the many branches the fox squirrels played joyfully. One of the lower branches which drooped directly before us had on its twigs a nest and in the nest were four young robins which would open their bills which seemed larger than their fuzzy bodies at the approach of their mother Their father scolded continuously while we were there. Under the elm was the moss-covered ground which was as soft as velvet. on this moss was a willow bench which was undoubtedly left by some careless camper.
When I turned this last essay in to the teacher she wanted to know what book I had copied it out of. She was persistent Maybe because she had caught another student in the act. I had to assure her that it was my essay and that she could ask my older brother who was a senior that year, He had watched me write by the light of a kerosene lamp the night before. That satisfied her and she gave me an A for the story.
DESCRIPTION OF VIVIDNESS
The sun had already sunk in the west. The light was slowly disappearing, and making way for the darkness. The rays of the sun shone over the horizon against the clouds, making it look as though there was a great fire in the west.
We were walking along a narrow winding path. On the right was the dense forest, and on the left a small brook. The brook was very rocky, it was about ten feet wide. We were nearing a fall of about three feet high. The moss covered rocks made th e water look a dark green. as we came closer we noticed two large rainbow trout trying to swim over the falls. After two attempts they disappeared over the top. Farther up the brook we saw a pair of muskrats dive into the water; come to the surface and start out for there den, leaving their trail as if they were rowboats. On the opposite bank of the brook two beavers were making short work of a willow. One was large and dark brown; the other was smaller and of a lighter brown. Way off in the d istance we could hear the long drawn out hoot of an owl. He was answered in the opposite direction by a shorter and shriller companion.. Two deer frightened from there evening meal soon disappeared in the underbrush, One was a large light f ooted buck, The other was a smaller and clumsier doe. The fox squirrels would jump from branch to branch playing tag and chattering. They seemed very fond of their bushy tails because they held it up like an ostrich feather on a woman's hat. We neared a great oak Suddenly from a nest in the top of the tree a crow sent out her short quick calls which seemed to be answered by a million friends. Now we were nearing a cabin . It was made of logs and had a roof of hand made shingles.
There was one window and a door. We came up to the door which had a golden tinted raccoon hide tacked to it. I opened the door and she walked in before me.
The first car that I can remember my dad having was a 1917 buick, It was a touring car with open air sides that could be closed with snap on covers in inclimate weather. He bought it during the First world War from Archie Echoff when he was draft ed. He must have purchased it before I was born . Its slow puring sound going down the road would put me to sleep very easily. A car ride still makes me sleepy. In the winter time it would be jacked up on blocks and left set until spring and the muddy ro ads had firmed up. We never took any long trips with it however I do remember going to Holland to vist the Getz farm to see all the animals. It was around until about 1930. June Wiggens came in one day with a 1927 dodge that had been traded in on a much fancier car. This Dodge was nearly six feet high and was an all inclosed sedan.
My brother Gordon drove it during my freshman and sophomore years and then I inherited the job for the last two years of my high school. Gordon was never in a hurry to get to School on time and he would time it so that we usually arrived jus t after the morning assembly but before the start of classes. This irritated the Principal no end. Gordon was always rigging up something so one time he wired an old ford coil so that it could be activated from inside the car. It wasn't long befo re the elementary kids had received a jolt of electricity. They would stay back and hit the car with long sticks. One day it was raining and a piece of wet rope lay on the ground. One fellow slapped the car with it. That was the last tim e as the wet rope is an excellent conductor of electricity. We would always have a car full of kids riding with us who paid about seventy five cents a week to ride. By the time that I became the driver at fifteen years of age the car was beginnin g to show the toll that was put on it. Fuel pumps had not been invented at this time. A vacuum pump was used instead. It was not always reliable and we often found ourselves sitting side of the road. I'd have to get and play with the pump not knowing what I was doing and then get back in and it would start right up. It made me look like a genius . The last year the radiator sprung a leak and wouldn't hold antifreeze so it was necessary to drain it eve ry day at school and at home. In the storm of 1936 it was at school when the storm hit and it was never started for a month. It started right up with the second turn of the crank. During spring vacation I took the radiator off and had it repaire d. There was always other kids who wanted a ride home some lived only a short distance from Coopersville. One in particular became persistent and I had caught him shoplifting from the store downtown. H e would climb right in the car as though h e was a paying customer. I told him to get out but he refused to move I got out the drivers seat and removed my coat and opened the back door. He saw that I meant business and he crawled out the other side. I don't know what would have happened i f he hadn't cause he was much larger than I was. The driver was the captain of the ship. The car had such a reputation that every one in school recognized it, Now sixty years later when ever I go to a school reunion the old Dodge comes in to the conversation.
One of the advantages of writing about ones self is that you can include only that what you want others to see. I have some reservations about this episode but because it my have had a greater impact on my life than what meets the eye I wi ll include it. The time was when I was in the second grade and the only one in my class. My reading skills had not progressed much beyond " run Jane Run" and " run fast jack' category. My time in school was spent on my part listening to the upper grades recite there lessons in history. agriculture and other fascinating subject to a barely seven year old. I'm sure there was a lot of day dreaming on my part as well. The results was that I must have been neglecting my own assignments. Our t eacher at the time was a local girl who must have still been in her teens as this was her first year of teaching. In those days one or two years of normal school after high school would qualify you for a teaching certificate. This teacher must not have be en to happy with my progress or attitude so she decided to make a issue of it. One day at the end of noon recess she brought me a poem and announced that she expected for me to memorize it by the time school let out. The poem was written in her long hand w riting for which I had no skill in reading. She read it through once and handed it to me to start memorizing . I couldn't even read the first word let alone the poem. I spent the afternoon in my usual daydreaming mode. At four O'clock after the r est of the students had been sent home she asked me to recite the poem. Of course I couldn't, So she announced that she would teach me a lesson and instructed me to go outside a get a stick to be used for a paddle. Outside I could find nothing suitable s o I decided to break off a red willow about a half inch thick. This was a mistake as it got her dander up and not knowing it I had supplied her with what amounted to a "bull" whip. I doubt that she realized it either. She went to work on my back side all the way from the waist to the ankles and she wouldn't stop, it was as if she was glorying in what she was doing. For years afterwards stories came back to me how she had bragged about the licking that she gave me. The results were that I had welt s all over, my back side was like an old fashioned washboard. You could lay your fingers in the purple strips. I didn't dare let my mother see them. Had a teacher treated a pupil like that today it would have meant the end of her career and possi bly jail time as well. But now years later I think that it may have been the best thing that could have happened to me at that time as it sure focused me on my studies. The teacher taught school for the next forty years and received many honors for her talents.
Incidentally I can still remember the poem It was quote "Some body said that it couldn't be done but he with a chuckled reply said maybe it couldn't but he wouldn't say so until he had tried" etc. When I got in the sixth grade the same poem showed up as ordinary reading so you see the teacher was putting me way out of my ability as a second grader. This teacher made her home in the neighborhood and I came in contact with her often but I doubt that I ever laid eyes on her without t hinking of that whipping and to this day I think in a way I didn't deserve it. We had many contacts over the years I even bought the farm that she and her husband lived on. A few years ago when she died I was given the privilege of being a Pallbearer at her funeral so maybe its time for me to put the whole episode to rest.
My teacher in the third and fourth grades was a man teacher. He had been a veteran of the Spanish American war and had many stories for us. He was a very nice man but he was not a pusher to us students. At the end of the fourth grade I knew the multiplication tables and could do both simple division and simple multiplication . The Spoonville school decided to send its students to Nunica the next year so I found myself in a class of nine children, for the first time in my life I was not al one in the class and had to keep up with my peers. They were doing long division and multiple digit multiplication . I was completely lost at first, So my fifth grade was a catchup year. In the sixth, seventh and eighth grades my teacher was My da d's sister. Probably one of the best teachers that ever taught in Nunica. I may have had a little head start on some of the others as I had listened to the higher grades recite while in the one room school. By the end of the eighth year it was necessary t o take a county test . My score put me on the county honor roll and gave me a jump start in going to high School.
THE DAY SPOONVILLE SCHOOL LET OUT EARLY
This story happened in 1922 when I was three years old. My older brothers attended school every day and I wanted to go too. The Spoonville school was situated in a south westerly direction from our place . The Spoonville Chapel was in a north westerl y direction from home. It had been pointed out to me as the place that my brothers went to Sunday school. One day I told my mother that I was going to visit school. It was shortly after lunch and she was busy and didn't pay to much attention to what I ha d said. So when I took off my little mind directed me in the direction of the Chapel instead of the school. The fields had been plowed in the fall and the frost was starting to go out. It wasn't long before my feet had bogged down in the sticky clay mud. My shoes became so big with mud that I could no longer move.
After a couple hours my mother discovered that I was missing and she remembered that I had said that I was going to school. She made a fast trip to school but I wasn't there. The teacher let the school out early so the children could look for t he missing boy. I was finally located stuck in the mud and balling my head off.
The Spoonville school only held classes for eight months so our school year ended in very early May. The next day our shoes came off and we went bare foot for the rest of the summer or until school started again. Our feet became so calloused that the skin would harden and crack . this was extreme painful. I don't remember of ever getting any cuts on my feet but the thistles sure found a way to stick to them and occasionally a thorn from the bushes kept me walking very carefully while bringing the cows up. When fall came the shoes would no longer fit as I had grown enough during the summer to out grow them. One fall I went out to bring t he cows in for milking in the morning. The ground was covered with a white frost. I was bare foot and that frost was cold. When the cows got out of their beds they would drop a nice warm pancake at about every step so you can guess where I steppe d following them. It felt better than the cold grass.
The year that dad built the barn {1926} the scraps of lumber and other debris from building the barn was piled in a pile and burned. A fire had burned down to a gray ash but was still hot. That was so inviting to an eight year old to see if he c ould run through the coals without burning the bare feet. Guess who tried it. I found out that it was still hot and it raise blisters on my bare feet. a stunt that I never tried again.
One time I was running down a cow path in the marsh out by Crockery Creek. the sides of the path was tall cycle grass . I was going about full speed when I saw a snake coiled up in the path almost under my feet. It was one time that my stride was extended in mid step . When I was young it wasn't uncommon to run right through poison ivy and not be bothered with it. But later on I had a dose of ivy several times. Another fun thing that happened while barefoot. Did you ever step on a bumble bee th at was sitting on a dandelion. In spit of the bad things that happened while barefoot it was a great feeling to spend the summer with no shoes on.
SNAKES and TURTLES
My dad William Peterson told these stories. One time when he was very young he was down to the river at the John Spoon house and Dan Spoon was there . He was about sixteen at the time. They looked down at the docks along the Spoon bayou and ther e was a pile of snakes three feet high on the docks they must have been in a mating frenzy. Dan went in the house and got his dad's civil war vintage rifle and loaded it with a soft nosed lead bullet. His shot into the middle of the pile,ends of s nakes flying all over, Snakes were much more plentiful in those days. I would guess that the clearing of the land and the many burning or forest fires that were common in those days eliminated most of the snakes known as wo od, black and sleeping johns. They were all the same snake .
Years ago when I was a boy there were two giant elm trees in the gully just below where Tom Holmes has his house now. The cow path that the cows traveled when bringing them to the barn went right under these elms. My dad says that years ago there was a black snake that was calling one of these elm trees home, and when driving the cows ho me he would lay out on one of the lower limbs and watch you passing underneath. At that time they had an old double barrel shot gun that had the choke spread out. It would scatter shot all over. So my dad carried the gun filled with small bird sh ot and when the snake stretched out on the limb he let him have it. Later they examined him. He was all of ten feet long and he had shot marks from one end to the other.
By the time I was old enough to travel the woods most of the black snakes were gone and I can't say that I have ever truly seen one of them. However I found several large skins of snakes that they had shed. Some were all of six feet in length. O ne time I rolled on up and took it to school and gave it to the teacher. She thought that it was pretty neat.
Turtles are another specie that has nearly disappeared in numbers from what they were sixty years ago . Crockery Creek bank would be full of them sitting on the sunny side, and every log that protruded from the water would be full of them. One time I was fishing for blue gills in the holes in the creek. I had about a dozen nice fish and I strung them on a wire and slipped them in the water to keep them fresh while I went down the creek to try other holes. When I returned to get the fish the re was nothing left but heads. The turtles had found a free meal at my expense.
About the first of June the snapping turtles leave the swamp and head for high ground to lay there eggs. They dig a hole about six to eight inches deep and deposit sometimes up to two dozen eggs. They cover the hole up but it is easily found by raccoon , skunk and possum. So most of the eggs never get the chance to hatch. About thirty years ago I was plowing some ground for a neighbor. It had stood idle for several years. I turned over a nest of turtle eggs. A broken egg indicated that they were nearly ready to hatch. I collected them and gave them to a school teacher who took them to school and in a few days the children had a real learning experience watching the little turtles emerge from there shells.