Snakes Alive

It's Snake Saturday; for those unfamiliar with this quintessential Kansas City celebration, you are not alone. When I first moved here some twenty-odd years ago, this southerner's vivid imagination conjured up images of a sawdust-floored tent revival and the snake-waving evangelists of my youth.  

Snake Saturday is a celebration in the greater Kansas City area, specifically in North Kansas City, held each year on the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day. It is loosely associated with St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.

In 1984, Snake Saturday founder and prominent businessman Laurence (Mickey) Finn and co-founder Bill Grigsby, a Kansas native and beloved voice of the Kansas City Chiefs, organized a small parade in the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn in North Kansas City. The parade consisted of four floats, a Grand Marshal, and a girl clad in a green bikini riding on the back of a motorcycle. It was a success despite an outside air temperature of ten degrees. 

Fast-forward to today, and Snake Saturday is a two-day celebration starting Friday evening, with a celebrity cook-off for charity. The festival culminates in one big parade and party on Saturday. The parade route, which begins at 14th and Swift and turns onto Amour Road, will attract over 100,000 Irish and would-be Irish who will paint the town green and celebrate the solid Irish heritage that is Kansas City. This year's theme is "Mickey Finn's Irish Dream." 

Having grown up in rural Louisiana, there are seven types of venomous snakes, and you are taught from an early age to stay away from the water's edge, run if it rattles, and red and yeller kill a feller. 

  I recall hunting barefoot in the grass one spring day for four-leafed clovers. I was searching for a bit of luck.' or at least a wee leprechaun that would lead me to a pot of gold. I almost put my foot down on a small coiled-up coral snake, one of the most deadly species that inhabit my home state. I screamed and ran one way, and the snake ran the other. But that experience left an impression, and I might once have suffered from a mild form of ophidiophobia. (fear of snakes)

However, my un-yielding stance of "all snakes are bad" has tempered somewhat after living in the Midwest. In particular is the Black Rat Snake, of which I have gained a modicum of grudging respect. I tend to give these relatively large, native specimens a wide berth. After all, they are nature's first line of defense in the ongoing battle of rodent and pest management. Chew on the fact (pardon the pun) that rats consume 20% of the world's feed. Rats also carry diseases such as the bubonic plague, leptospirosis, salmonella, and, let's not forget to mention, fleas.

Hmm... I think having a couple of six-foot-long black snakes reside in your barn is a small price to pay. But all bets are off when I find them swallowing eggs in the chicken coop or climbing up the rafters to rob the spring nests of chirping baby birds. At that point, relocation services, in the form of my husband, the snake wrangler, are called in.

But let's get back to Snake Saturday. Did St. Patrick drive the snakes out of Ireland? Probably not. Scientists have determined that the most recent Ice Age, some 15,000 years ago, killed off the reptile population. Despite the Emerald Isle's current temperate climate, the 12-mile channel gap between Ireland and Scotland has kept them from returning. 

As you may have already figured out, the association of St Patrick and his banishment of snakes from Ireland with the current Northland celebration is loose, at best. But it's an excellent excuse to celebrate all things Irish. As for me, I'll be keeping my "wee" pair of eyes out for the return of the slithering serpents of Spring. 

Who knows, maybe I'll spy a four-leafed clover or two. I can always use the luck!