Terry Steele has always been strange.

Hi Terry. Seems we have something in common. I've been called weird, amongst other things, many times. Nice to meet you. P.S. I have a few of those Viet Nam War era shots myself.

Hi Terry,

I know by now that you are strange and suspected that you have always been although now I start wondering whether maybe it was the Vietnam war that made you 'strange'? Cool image by the way. Was this snake your unit's 'mascotte' or your personal pet?

I am sorry to hear about your disease and even though I am younger than you I can image what its like to be inactive because of that. I had a disc prolapse myself some six months back and had to be 'inactive' to heal. It's quite a lot better now, but I am not looking forward to it coming back, which it will.

But I am glad you have joined NPN Terry, coz you sure make things around here more fun and exiting! Keep it up and I hope you will be more active again soon!

Hi Terry...

Nice to meet you again

So sorry to hear about your inactivity caused by degenerative disk disease...I can only imagine how torturous it is for someone as active as you are...

Maybe since you're all "read out" NPN members such as myself can keep you busy with 'writing threads' such as this...

Eeeeek! The skeleton and the snake, I hope, are just props and that it is indeed just a bad dream

Take care, Terry...glad you're around NPN kicking it up a notch!

Henie

Hi John (Benway),

Being weird isn't all that bad. Sort of separates us out from the common folks. Thanks for your comments.


Hello John (Christopher),

Staged? At that age, when you're as fast as lightening and bullet proof?

Stuffed? This snake was not taxidermiated (neology) and a rattlesnake could not get any more real than this one was.

Strike? If it did, it missed me... My focus was on trying to remember my lines.

Die? Yes. I was forced to return as a poor nature photographer until I get it right.

And John, thanks for quoting the lines that I was never able to remember. While you were attending Shakespearean festivals, I was watching Tarzan movies.

Hi Vincent,

Thanks for your concern regarding my haywire back, and I hope your situation remains better and doesn't get worse again.

I was not in the war. I was the only person I knew to volunteer for the draft and the only person I knew who was turned down for being too tall. I just think of my life during that period as the war era.

So my strangeness didn't come from bad war experiences. I've just had a need my whole life for adventure and to be different.

Hello Henie,

Thanks for your comments and your concern about my back. It's nice to meet you again as well. Regarding your question on the skull and snake, I'd like to just leave these questions unanswered for a few days to see what other responses the mystery of this image brings.

This is for Henie and John (Christopher) and anybody else who has been curious.

I believe that photo was taken in 1969, and it is definitely an untouched, no Photoshop image. It is presented just as it was taken. Yes, it was staged.

The skull was real, and it had belonged to a great uncle who was a dentist, so yes it is a prop.

The rattlesnake is just as real as I previously stated. It is the Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, which I believe is still a sub-species of the Western Rattlesnake. It's a road kill that I took home and stuck in my freezer with the intention of molding it into a perfect strike as it froze. I got side-tracked and didn't produce a perfect pose, but I guessed it worked. It sure fooled a lot of people over the years. I'm not really a practical joker, but this remains my favorite photograph from that period.

Thanks for having fun with me,
Terry

PS. When this first came out of the freezer, it looked better. It was a hot day, by the time I got this all set up the snake was drooping.

You do have a way of livening things up around here! I'm confused though, are you the one on the right or left?

Thanks Terry I was trying to Get the kilobyts down on my repost . Thats why you may have had trouble. Hope to chat again... JIM

Not a bad looking snake for being roadkill, Terry! It's a pleasure to "meet" you!

Hey Terry...

Thanks for the clarification on the snake and the skull...at first read of your response to me and John I thought: "Wow, the skull was real and it belonged to his great uncle...hmmm, I wonder what they did with the uncle's body?"...I know, I know...uncle=dentist

...and I hope you maintain a separate freezer for your road kills, yes????

...now I know why I took this photo...it's for you!

Thanks for the fun,
Henie

Hi Henie, Thanks for the fun picture of the Road Kill machine and the clever comments.! About keeping a separate freezer for road kills, I can still here my mother yelling when she found that snake in her feezer, on her cookie sheet. It wasn't the snake that caused her alarm, having raised me she was used to all sorts of strange things showing up in her freezer. But she totally objected to that use of her cookie sheet.

When I can find time, I'm going to post a picture on your member photo site showing you just versatile and unset in my ways I truly am.