Oh, Alice, there are no snakes in Guam... and it never gets cold in Maine... and pigs can fly.

Actually in the two years I have been here I have only seen three or four snakes and none of them up close and personal. My friend Gordon uses their vertebrae in some of the jewelry he makes and sells. When Wakana's family was here we visited Gordon. As we sat in the living room I noticed a box full of bones and passed it to Ulala, our thirteen year old niece. She did quite a double take when she realized it was snake bones. Then Gordon pulled out the wired backbone of a seven foot snake. Everyone was suitably impressed. Last month someone brought him an eight foot snake. That is the largest anyone has seen though there are stories of much larger ones.

Amos, who's to say I have survived this story intact. I am remarkably changed from when I arrived here. And, as the Downeast story goes, when the old man was asked if he'd lived in the town all his life he answered, "Not yet."