Thursday, January 20, 1949
Mayor George W. Sharp, A. E. Cooper, G. R. Faulk-nier and Aubrey Ferguson were in Charleston last Friday to appeal before the Public Service Commission on business connected with adding to and improving the municipal water plant.
SEEBERT NEWS
On January 10, 1949, Sherman J. Pyles and Mrs. Etta H. Pyles, of Seebert, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They were married in Marlinton by the late Rev. Wm. T. Price. Those days were the good old days of horse and buggy mode of travel.
Their guests were Mrs. Mintie Wade, A. O. Pyles, Ernest J. Pyles, Stella Pyles and son, Curtis; E. G. Pyles, Mrs. Myrhl Burns and Mrs. Iva Clendennen.
Mrs. E. G. Pyles and Mrs. Burns presented the couple with two cakes, beautifully decorated. They received other tokens of remembrance. They all enjoyed the evening; Mrs. Burns played the organ of long ago. The weather was ideal. The visitors left feeling happy to be there and shared their happiness with the bride and groom of fifty years.
GROUNDHOGS
Miss Bonnie Moore, daughter of Isaac Moore, on the Back Alleghany, can tell for sure this year when groundhog day really comes. She has a couple of pet groundhogs which went into winter storage last fall. Their nest is in a protected barrel. They were sleeping so soundly when Leo Young examined them recently that they showed no sign of life other than the male – manlike – could be heard to snore.
FIELD NOTES
Last summer a line walker of the Home Natural Gas Company was walking line to Richwood, when a big rattlesnake struck him twice on his high-top boot. Fortunately, the fangs did not penetrate the leather nor touch his skin. The snake was killed and mounted. It measures 56 inches in length. Now the inquiry comes in to this office, is not this snake about as big as rattlers grow in West Virginia? I can answer with a positive, yes. The average timber rattlesnake of these parts is big at 40 inches, and plenty large at four feet. The longest one I ever saw measured was four feet 10 inches.
My blind friend, James Shinaut, never forgets anything and so I asked him about the length of the longest rattler he ever knew about.
Yes sir, it was a big black rattler killed on the railroad siding near the blacksmith shop in the now long deserted site of the late sawmill town of Olive, up on the Coal and Iron railway. This snake was killed by a tap on the head with the blacksmith’s hammer as it came across the frog of the railway switch. It was skinned by a man named Varner, and the skin measured a full 57 inches. So, the snake would have stretched a full five feet.
Friend Oley W. Jackson was the next one polled. He was raised in the rattler belt and has killed hundreds of them. Sure, he had measured big rattlesnakes over four feet, but all were under five feet. The biggest one he ever killed was shot to pieces on Alleghany Mountain. This big snake was coiled, and the heavy shotgun charges cut it down to proper sizes. He was not particular to put the pieces back in place. Anyway, he had no measuring stick along that day. He figures this snake was five feet long and more.
The Back Alleghanies have grown the biggest rattlers of all in these parts. I have heard of six footers being killed on this long range. Somewhere, I have an old picture of a rattler killed on the face of Shavers Cheat Mountain west of Cass, which was just a little short of 70 inches in length.
A REAL DIPLOMAT
“Pa,” said Hector, looking from the book he was reading, “what is meant by ‘diplomatic phraseology?”’
“Well,” replied Pa, “if you were to say to a homely girl, ‘Your face would stop a clock,’ that would be stupidity, but, if you said to her, ‘When I look into your eyes, time stands still,’ that would be diplomatic phraseology!”
MARITAL BLISS
Wife: “I looked over the rest of the men at the party and I was so glad that I was married to you.”
Husband: “Thanks, Sweetheart!”
Wife: “It’s such a comfort to know that you have a husband that no other women will try to steal.”
