Memories of Minden

The story you are about to read is true. I will testify to any forum, panel or court that it is a true story that happened in the spring of 1951. Myself and four or five other teen age boys were snake hunting on Dorcheat Bayou and hadn't had much luck. In fact we hadn't had any luck at all, because we hadn't seen a single snake. We were approaching the inlet channel from Dorcheat into Crichton's Pond and because of the underbrush were forced to walk in single file. I was in front and behind me were Joe Roberts, his brother Charles, Donald Slack, and one or two of the following, Lindsay Anderson, Gary Matthews or Jerry Brogden. I cannot remember which one(s) of these three were there, if any. If you were never in the area of Crichton's Pond, I will try to explain exactly where we were. Gifford Hill Gravel Company had built a wooden bridge over the bayou for their trucks to cross over it. This channel we were approaching was a couple hundred yards south of the bridge. Our favorite swimming hole was directly across the bayou not far from the western end of the bridge. A recent check by myself revealed that the bridge is no longer in existence. I'm not even sure the ponds are still there. Anyway as we approached the inlet/outlet, I being in the lead, could see it before anyone else. What I saw looked like a huge snake. I would estimate that it was at least 10 inches in diameter and probably 20 to 30 feet long. It was impossible to get a good approximation of its length because the whole body was not visible at one time. When his head was out of the water, part of its back and the tail were submerged, so I never saw the entire body at once. I was so struck with the size of the thing that I stopped and just stood there staring with my mouth agape, not saying anything (didn't want it to see us), and I thought everyone had seen it. I watched it for probably 10 seconds and then as its head reached the bayou it completely submerged leaving me with an unbelievable story. As soon as it had disappeared, I asked, "Did you see that?" Joe answered and said. "See what?" "That big snake," I replied. No one had seen it but me, and when I described it they didn't believe a word of my story. When asked why I didn't shoot it, I replied with something similar to, "These twenty twos wouldn't hurt it anyway, and it may have come after us." I never told anyone else about it because if my best friends, who were with me at the sighting, didn't believe me, why should anyone else. I didn't want to get a reputation as a tale teller or something worse, so I kept quiet about it until I told the story on MHS friends a couple of years ago. Every time I read a story about the Loch Ness Monster, I think about that snake, because they have printed pictures of the monster in newspapers and magazines and they sort of resemble the snake I saw. On the other hand, I have seen Anacondas on the Animal Planet and it looked more like an Anaconda than Nessie. But it was verrry BIG.