Preston Grunt's Pet Snake

     Trying to convince the Reverend Willard Reno that there’s no such thing as a hoop snake is a waste of good time. “Oh yes they is! I seen one myself! Seen it with my own two eyes! Come a’rollin into one of our Sunday mornin preachins, right in the middle of  ‘An Unclouded Day.’ Never heard the like of shoutin’, foot stompin’, and amenin’ in all my borned days. So I know they’s hoop snakes!”  And he was right. Well…..sort of.     

      Preston Ray Grunt was the fifth of five boys born to Porter and Pauline Grant:  Paul, Pete, Percy, and Porter, Jr., so he had to learn to be thick-skinned early. So why Preston Ray GRUNT? 

 

     Prissy Siler, the hospital’s maternity ward clerk, was a good worker, never late, got along well with others, and all the other things that make a good worker a good worker. But her handwriting was, let’s just say, less than terrible! She would sometimes forget to dot her i’s and cross her t’s which made them look like l’s. And, her a’s looked like u’s and her u’s looked a’s. And so the story of Preston Ray Grunt begins.  

     Preston came into the world on a Friday the 13^th mid-afternoon, definitely an omen. On that particular Friday, Prissy was to meet her cousin, Fancy, at the VFW’s Friday Frolics, so she started watching the clock about 3:30 PM. Somewhere around 4:15, she began working on baby Grant’s paperwork and the associated pile of red tape. But that was not at the top of her priority list, not by a long shot. So, as she usually does, she went through the process quicker than a lizard snags a grasshopper, licked and stamped the envelope, pitched it in the outgoing mail basket, and headed her Plymouth Valiant toward the local VFW Hall.  

     Three weeks or so later, an envelope bearing the return address, “Bureau of Vital Statistics, State of Mississippi, Jackson, MS,” arrived at the Grant’s RFD address. Porter, realizing what it was and being a little nervous, sliced it open with his pocket knife, and, wouldn’t you know it? There it was in big bold letters, “Preston Ray GRUNT.”  

     Over the next week or so, Porter and Pauline discussed their options and possible solutions to the unheard-of tragedy. But after finding out that the state would charge $300 for making the change and a $200-an-hour lawyer would have to file a written and documented request, Porter and Pauline decided to leave it as it was. “Aaw, he’ll learn to deal with it,” Porter rationalized. Well, he didn’t…or maybe he did.  

        As the months and years dragged on like molasses in January, Preston heard the expected array of Grunt-related jokes: pig stys, rootin’ for acorns, and, of course, mud holes. And although Preston appeared to just let it slide off, people wondered if he really did. But the home folks knew one thing for sure. If you got on his bad side, you could count on one thing…being the butt of one his pranks. That was his way of diverting attention away from his cartoonish name. And his strategy worked! So, just as his daddy had prophesied, he learned to deal with it, and in the process earned the much-deserved nickname, “Preston Prankster.” 

 

     One of his classics took place on a cold December night on the occasion of the annual town Christmas parade.  

     Abner Jennings, the high school biology teacher, had failed Preston twice and then rubbed salt in the wound by blurting out in the teacher’s lounge, “I don’t know if that Grunt kid took biology or if it took him.”  So with the help of his cousin, who was the school janitor, Preston got into the biology lab and “borrowed” the model human skeleton, dressed it in a Santa Claus suit, pinned a label on the back that said, MR. JENNINGS, and rode it, tied to his four wheeler, right down the middle of the Main Street parade, and believe it or not, was awarded 3^rd place for “Most Creative Entry.” But the prank to end all pranks was yet to come.  

     The Millstone Creek Congregational Church sat at the bottom of and across a typical rough county road from a long sloping hill. A trail, as straight as an arrow and worn smooth by Sunday afternoon four-wheeler riders, went straight up it, exactly in line with the open front doors.  (Reverend Reno wanted the doors to be left open as a sort of invitation to “come on in.”) The Grants were loyal members of the church and supported it in every way loyal members should support their church. But something happened one Sunday morning that really got under Preston’s thick skin. Elder Jarrold McFadden refused to let him go in because he thought the not-so-flattering image on his sweatshirt looked suspiciously like Dottsie Reno, the Reverend’s wife, although Preston insisted, that it was a caricature of his lady friend, Jaleen Jaggins. So, with that unfortunate incident, the prank to end all pranks was conceived.  

     Preston’s favorite pastime was sitting on his front porch doing nothing…and he was good at it. On one particular hot August day, something unusual happened. Like a bolt of lightning, seemingly out of nowhere, Preston had a would-be award-winning prank idea. With a little bit of back-woods engineering, he could create a hoop snake. With his brain running in high gear, he reasoned that if a stamp could be steamed off of an envelope, a snake skin could be steamed off of a belt…and his brother, Percy, had one. So after a little old-fashioned arm twisting, Preston traded Percy a Roy Acuff 8-track tape for it, steamed off the skin, and headed to the flea market in search of a cheap hula hoop and a bottle of Stik-Tite glue. A hoop snake was about to be born.  

     When the following Sunday rolled around, Preston, with his hoop snake in hand, and hoping that some good might come from his harmless church prank, made his way to the top of the sloping hill, aimed his "snake" toward the church’s open front doors and let it go. And as true as an arrow, the hoop snake rolled down the hill picking up speed along the way, hit a pothole and jumped the front steps, rolled down the aisle, bounced over the kneeling rail, and landed right in the middle of song leader Margie Dinkins’ lap. Rejoicing, hand waving, and shouts of “It’s a sign, it’s a sign” rang out and went on for at least fifteen minutes.
  
     And so, it can truthfully be said that on that fateful Sunday morning, Audell Sullins, who had kept the Dirt Road Bar in business for years, literally got the Devil scared out of him. Not a drop of liquor has touched his lips since.