old man whitley and the snake handlers pt.1
Oct 11, 2006
“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them…” – Mark 16:18
Whitley was old and from Kentucky. His face, tanned and leathered, lost the elasticity needed to form expression sometime back in the sixties.
A pair of eyes some once called fine lay beneath a fringe of white. He never smiled or frowned or made much use of his head at all except to drink with or smoke with or just say nothing with.
He wore lonesome and proud like heavy flanneled overalls, even in the summer.
I was five when I knew him. When I helped him hunt snakes in the mountains of West Virginia for Preacher Slaughter and the serpent handlers.
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