The Legend of the White Oak Runner- Proven

There are a great many things in the South that are considered to be fiction. Indeed, we Southerners like to exaggerate, even lie, because we love a good story, and the more twists and turns the story takes, the better. When listening to a Southern story teller spinning their craft, it is best to remember that he knows it’s true because he made it up himself.
But in every story is some small grain of truth. Therefore I offer you my own eye-witness account of the white oak runner.
For those of you who are poor dumb Yankees and have no idea what I’m talking about, a white oak runner is a snake. Being a Southern snake it is particularly frightening and fierce. It is aggressive and some say, just plain mean. Of course it is venomous.
Now should you bother to look in any field guide of Southeastern snakes, you will discover that there are (supposedly) only four venomous snakes- the rattlesnake, the copperhead, the corral snake, and the cottonmouth. Since the “experts” don’t list the white oak runner, most people assume it doesn’t exist.
But I have seen it.
Before I delve into the horror of that hot summer day, let’s look at the name.
Runners are fast. So snakes that seem to move especially quick are called runners, like the black runner, which is sometimes called the black racer.
White oak is a kind of oak tree with rounded leaves. You can tell the difference between white oaks and red oaks by looking at the leaves. Red oaks have pointed leaves. Remember it this way- the Indians, the Red Men, hunted with arrows, which are pointed, and the White Men hunted with bullets, which are rounded.
So the white oak runner is a very fast moving snake that presumably makes its habitat in or around oak trees. Unfortunately my snake was in the dryer vent.
It was a hot day. I don’t remember how old I was. I was playing with the hose pipe. (This was in the days before water conservation) I saw what I thought was an over-sized bug and I sprayed it.
It was not a bug, it was the head of a snake and he had one unblinking eye fixed on me as he flicked his tongue in and out, in and out.
I ran screaming into the house. My mother heard the word “snake” in between my screams and she assumed a chicken snake was outside, so she promptly went and got her hoe to chop off its head because that is how Southern Ladies kill snakes, poisonous or not.
She calmly turned off the hose and waited by the dryer vent for a few minutes. Nothing happened. Becoming impatient, she called her father, who had a very simple solution- turn on the dryer. When the snake gets too hot, he’ll come out.
Mom thought that was an excellent idea, so she turned on the heat and went out to wait. In just a few short moments the snake began slithering out. And out. And out. And out. When she had four feet of snake and still no tail in sight, she began to fear that she had too much snake and not enough hoe. Thinking it would be better to kill before the snake had the advantage of free movement, she chopped down with all her might.
And was blinded by the muddy water that splashed her face.
Now she has an angry snake that she can’t see and one pitiful little hoe.
Mom said at this point she yanked off her glasses and tried to clean them on her mud soaked shirt. With vision partially restored, she realized she was completely alone. Not another living thing was the yard. No dog, no chickens, I had bailed a long time ago, and Dad was at work.
I don’t really know what happened. There was lots of yelling and hissing and splashing and chopping noises. It was all terrifying and it seemed to last forever, but of course it couldn’t have been but about 30 minutes or so because just as Mom came in still trying to clean her muddy glasses on her even muddier shirt, my grandfather drove up.
Apparently, the lure of a snake was just something Papa couldn’t resist. So he drove all the way out to the country just to see it. (This was also before the days of $4 a gallon gasoline) He jumped out of his truck and shrieked, “That’s a white oak runner! You shouldn’t have messed it! That’s the most poisonous snake there is!”
I’d like to tell you that’s the end of this story. A few months later, after my father had gone to work, my mother came and woke me up. “I have something to show you.”
There in bucket we used for carrying out ashes was a small snake. Black and white and very familiar. “Doesn’t it look the same?”
It did. She had killed it with the fireplace poker as she was leaving the kitchen. In the semidarkness of the living room, she had nearly stepped on it.
Beware the white oak runner!