Our Very Own Boo Radley

The Deseret News reported, "Marty Bone will be sleeping alone."

Every neighborhood needs a Boo Radley. Childhood isn't complete without daring your friends to go past (or into) the scary house on the corner, and the subsequent terror of running for your life, looking back to see whether or not you got caught.

In our neighborhood, it was the snake man. This man had lots of different snakes, but his favorite was an 18-foot-long Burmese python named Julius Squeezer. Marty Bone's amazing python (who apparently slept with him... I'll be up tonight thinking of all the different ways that is soooo wrong) lived to be 43 years old, a record in the python world. Normally, they live to be 20 or 30, and the previous world record for longevity was 33 years. Bone says that "the difference was all the love he gave to the snake."

His mother said, "Snakes are his life." Indeed, he's had snakes named Poly Grip, Alexander the Grip, and Annie Green Squeeze. He hollowed out one side of his couch so Julius (a female, oddly) could sit there with him. This is where he taught her to watch tv.

Bone used to take his snakes out to his front lawn to "exercise" them. Completely unexpectedly, (I am sure) Julius, who is longer than my NYC apartment, escaped...four times. I remember this vividly, as we were all terrified of running into her. Once she was found in my neighbor's back yard. She also escaped from the pound at least once. How did she do this? Well, she could open doors by draping her 220-lb body over the doorknob then slithering inside. Safe. Real safe. As if it isn't terrifying enough to be in the presence of a huuuuge python. Now it can open doors too.

Well, although Bone was charged with 3 Class B misdemeanors following some of Squeezer's antics, he insisted that she was never a danger to humans. He insisted, "Burmese pythons are real lovable. They have personalities and they bind one on one... You could see a smile on her face." Yes, the smile of knowing that you could run but couldn't hide. After all, she could open your door.

So, even though Julius Squeezer was a terrifying, nightmare-inducing neighborhood menace that we used to dare each other to touch, I do after all have to feel a little sorry for Marty Bone for losing his "main squeeze." And for the fact that the love of his life is a snake.