Snakes of Arkansas: 2007 Kidz Fair

About

The Arkansas Herpetological Society was proud to host an educational booth for the 2007 Kidz Fair. This event was held at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds in Little Rock on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007. AHS volunteers were Brad Birchfield, Dale Klare, Ryan Klare, Glenn Manning, Cyndi Porter, and Kory Roberts. An Unofficial Report has been provided by Brad Birchfield.

Gallery

Unofficial Report, by Brad Birchfield

My, my how time flies. It was just 3 years ago that we participated in the first Kidz Fair held in Alltel Arena. It and subsequent years have been raving success stories for our little �snake nerd� club on the internet. This year�s was no different. Any time you can get folks to get up close and personal with these interesting animals and take the �scare� factor away, I think we can do a lot of good. Not that I think all the folks that visited with us at the Kidz Fair are never gonna kill a snake on purpose again, but its nice to think that it might make them think twice about it somewhere down the road. I digress�it has been a long Monday here at work.

The Kaptain and myself loaded up enough cages and herping paraphernalia to start a traveling reptile show at my house on Friday night. With the sunset at our backs, we headed to Conway for our first stop. A visit with �Harper� from here on the forum. I made a short call when we got to Conway and we agreed to meet at Shakes frozen custard, which I highly recommend. As we pulled up there was a �professor looking� guy with his wife and kids wandering around the parking lot with their frozen treats. I told Kory I was sure that was him, but as I got out and made eye contact with the guy, I soon realized it was not our �Harper�. I can imagine the look on the guy�s face if I had approached him with the large frozen rattlesnake I had brought for George Harper. So after a few minutes, a jovial bearded man emerged from a small car and introduced himself as THE George Harper we had met online. He reeked of cheap whiskey and either body odor or onions. There was also a woman in the car, a prostitute I am sure. I digress�(after some bs�ing with George, Kory advised him that I seemed to be the groups historian with my write-ups of AHS events�and I told him sometimes I like to embellish things a wee little bit to make them more entertaining, so I just couldn�t disappoint him). Actually, George was alone, and smelled fine, but he DID have a beard, so that part was true. Although he wont make the fall field trip, I have the feeling we�ll be runnin into Mr. Harper again real soon. Ya�ll down there in the central part of the state need to take him out herping and get a good dose of seed ticks�introduce him to summer herping in Arkansas the right way! Anyway, if you�re reading this George, it was nice to meet you and I look forward to herping with you in the future.

We arrived at Cyndi�s house around 10 pm, just to see the folks that had come over for a viewing of Monty Python�s �In search of the Holy Grail� were leaving. The few that remained were familiar. One Zach �Cancerman� (who is getting engaged) and �tiny E� �Toadlicker� Erica. We continued watching Dave Chappelle on DVD which is still funny even though we�d all seen it a 1000 times�and what was even funnier to me was hearing Cyndi�s husband, Steve, do his impression of a street-wise black guy. You see, Steve is from Wales, and has that Welsh accent and hearing him do Dave Chappelle, doing some crazy character like Tyrone Biggums was funnier than Chappelle himself! A good time was had by all, until I realized that �Tiny E� had went to bed in the guest bedroom where I had planned to sleep. I debated going in there and physically removing her, but citing her past State Trooper employment, I decided that the couch was fine. Cyndi said she was woken up several times by my snoring in the living room, causing her to laugh and wake up Steve, so I am guessin it will be a while before we have another slumber party at the Porter residence. But regardless, thanks to the Porter�s for having us, that sure makes getting up the next morning easier!

Despite a horribly inept Sonic in Maumelle who goofed up the Kaptain�s order, we were pullin into the fair grounds for the Kidz Fair by 0800. Right off the bat we start attracting the kooks. Well, actually this first guy was pretty nice�apparently from some radio station that had a booth there at the fair. He helped us unload and use his cart to transport the tanks to our booth space. In exchange for this, we let him take a couple of snakes off and show his friends while we set up. By the time the doors opened at 0900, we were ready to go. Then, the fun really began.

Now, the first year of our participation in this thing, there was a big debate about having venomous animals. We decided it was just too risky and didn�t have any �hots� in our display. Ditto for last year. Well, about June, me and Jeremy started talking about it and put the pressure sell on Kory and he relented and said he�s all for it as long as safety was our main concern. Safety is my middle name baby. Actually, its Allen, but I thought that would sound good. Anyway, I keep a copperhead and timber rattlesnake rescued from a working crack house (just ask me about that sometime, and Kelly Irwin, Oh I have something special for you the next time I see you). So a couple weeks ago, Jeremy and I grabbed up a similar sized cottonmouth to complete the most commonly seen pit viper collection. Now at home, the timber and the copper have been living in peace and harmony, so you can imagine how surprised I was (and probably how surprised the timber rattler was) when the first thing that happened when I put them all in the same 55 gallon tank Saturday was the cottonmouth biting the timber rattlesnake right on the HEAD! Now, I�ve read/seen this before and more often than not, it ends with a snake going to snake heaven, but I guess the crack house had built up the timber�s immunity system to some wacky level, or the venom dose wasn�t too extreme, because he lived but there was some nice swelling and an oozing bloody spot on the back of his head. Fear not though, he�s fine�I think he just had a good headache for the whole day. After the doors opened, we were almost overwhelmed by the crowd.

For I am guessing about 5 solid hours, there were TONS of people and their kids walking by and looking at our animals. Glenn got out a big diamondback water snake that we caught and it turned out to be one of the most gentle animals we had, to our surprise. In fact, it was so busy at some points, I was HOPING that rhombifer would chomp down or musk all over someone�but it never did. A couple of highlights was some goofus dropped the prairie king while holding it for a picture, but thanks to a quick thinking Ryan, it was rescued from being stampeded. I guess you get a little softer when you have kids, but I still get a kick out of watching these little faces grinnin ear to ear when they get to hold a snake for the first time. Kudos to our photographers (which I was not part of), you got some great expressions on the kids faces. Also, I am considering trading my 2 kids for 2 black kids of the same age. Why are little black kids so cute? There was this one little guy that reminded me of �Stymie� from the little rascals�Ryan spooked him with a snake a little as he got close to touching it and he jumped back and in as serious a face on a child I have ever seen, gave Ryan a tongue lashing so fast, I am still unsure what he said, but it cracked us all up. He was not amused. But no matter what the color or race, there were some real dandies that came by Saturday.

In years past, we started breaking off 2 at a time for lunch, but the crowds this year just wouldn�t allow it. So at 1330, me and Glenn took off outside for some food, only to find 2 food trailers with lines about 75 people deep right out in the blazin sun. We thought that would be futile, so we nominated Cyndi to go buy us some burgers. Naturally, I volunteered to go to, so as to ensure I got enough to eat. After finding all but the main entrance closed, Cyndi and I sat in traffic for a long time before we finally got away from the crowds. Downtown, we found a �Rallys� that had a lot of 2 for $4 specials, so I ordered like 8 or 10 big burgers for all of us. Unfortunately, not everyone is a big fat pig like me and after my 3rd rally burger, I was still staring at a sack full of greasy delights, while everyone else was done. Fear not, because my dog Grady has taken care of the remainder burgers. We were a bit concerned about getting back into the fair grounds without paying when we came back with the food, but a quick , authoritative flash of the AHS badges Kory made for us, the guy at the gate just let us right back in. And by the way, RYAN had to have a PLAIN CHEESEBURGER�I feel like I have failed as a role model.

Adding to �new events�- Glenn saw not one, but two different people collapse due to heat, and have to be tended to by the paramedics. I got to see this greasy little thug of a guy wearing, what else? a wife beater, shove and curse at his wife/girlfriend. Not long after that, he got a visit from security and last I saw there was a nice police woman walking him out the door. Then, as in years past, we always seem to pick up one kid, that is so enamored with our display that they just melt into our booth and try to become �one of us�. Well, I know Cyndi had mentioned having a nephew before and I saw her and this kid sitting back behind our table and the kid is enjoying one of the cokes I had brought and they are just talking away, or at least that�s what I thought. So a while later, I notice Cyndi gets up and goes back out with a snake for showing, and the kid is still sitting there, and says �hey, do mind if I have another coke?�. So I am like �sure, go ahead�. Then, as I am standing there he comes over and asks �hey, what�s HER name�� (pointing at Cyndi). So I am like HUH? It was a flashback to last year with Mr. 90mph hair. Anyway, nice kid, but just a little too eager to help. He did take our group shot though, so I guess it was worth it. Every year�

After the fair was over, I pressured Dale and Ryan into joining us downtown for dinner. I figured it�d be a nice place to gather and discuss the days events over some good pizza. What I didn�t figure on was how fervent razorback fans from Little Rock are, especially on a Saturday evening game that started about 5 minutes before we got there. I must say, and say with confidence, the ONLY place in the state that was louder than Gusanos on Saturday night was razorback stadium, and I am not even real sure that it was that loud. I am talking about some RABID, DRUNK fans here. I had to yell my order to Cyndi who had to yell it to Glenn, who yelled it to the waitress to place an order. Couple that with the 4-some behind us that probably started drinking about 9 am letting loose with the �F� bombs every time we did something in the game�it made for a, lets just say it�s a dinner we�ll remember for a while. At one point a 'high-five' attempt by the drunk table ended up splashing a perfectly good bear all over Glenn and Cyndi. Then Glenn got to deal with 'the drunk apology' thing for another 10 minutes. Earlier, I had arranged a meeting with Noctifer and Russian Baby there at Gusanos to give them some corn snakes from Jeremy�s hatch, and somehow, we managed to notice them and hand off the snakes despite the pandemonium. Wish we could have visited/introduced ourselves, but we were 6 crammed into a table for 2. Maybe next time. We did get to visit with Adam and Anya, good to see those guys again.

With a belly full of eye-talian Chicago style pizza, we headed back to the car for the drive home. About halfway there, a homeless guy hit us up for some change and Dale, Ryan�s dad obliged him with a handful of coins. The homeless guy ambled off and we stood at our cars recapping the days events before leaving, but as I notice the SAME homeless guy approaching us for another handout, we decided to get gone. All in all, another great Kidz Fair for us. Thanks to everyone who participated. I am thinkin Rally's for dinner next year.