Broken back snake

At the foot of Mount Rainer near the town of Mineral out in the toolies lies Pleasant Valley Christian Camp. Once a small sawmill, it was purchased and used as a camp.

In the early years, all they had was big old army tents, and I remember sleeping in a partially refurbished chicken coop.

Now they have all sorts of accommodations complete with a swimming pool.

Camp for me was great, it provided a new audience to ply all my shenanigans on, and I was quite skillful in acting stupid right up to the point of getting kicked out.

It was at this particular time when the adult population was losing their sense of cherishing me that broken back snake saved my hide.

At camp, there was a dandy stream that even sported very small trout and being I was, way, past done doing little group activities, I decided to explore the downstream regions of this fine stream.

Now every kid knows the further you go the better the adventure gets, and I had gone a considerable distance when I came across a fellow camper sitting on a rock looking completely bummed out.

His name was Norman I think, he had a flat liner personality, and so he didn't fit in all that well with the other campers. In fact, he had been trying for two days to get the adults to let him go home.

But this was in the old days where kids didn't get sent home, in fact, I'm not sure they even had a telephone at the camp.

Regardless Norman had traveled the way of the stream to find his place to be miserable, when I stumbled upon him.

After talking to him and hearing his story, I tried to cheer him up. I showed him a Gardner snake with a broken back I'd found and was carrying in my pocket to use later at a more opportune occasion.

Norman gave the snake a different value, he was fascinated in having a pet, and it being a snake was way cool to him.

I told him all sorts of snake stories, and he ate it up. To me a broken back snake was not good for anything but a prank on girls. But to Norman it was a gift from GOD sent from heaven above.{city kids are a little different}

So I gave it to him, and he had the time of his life with his new snake.

We wandered back to camp, and as we got closer we met the adults who had come looking for us.

With a considerable amount of embellishment of the truth, I convinced them, I knew of their concern for Norman and went to find him.

They could see Norman's spirits were high, and they praised me for helping him out.

I down played it and certainly didn't reveal the huge role Broken Back Snake had in Norman's new found happiness.

Norman did great the rest of the week, and I didn't get kicked out, just warned several times.

The snake was worthless to me, but made all the difference to Norman.

We serve a GOD that specializes in taking the things that are not and using them greatly.

So maybe there is hope for me, because I am the one with the broken back now.