Dick Cowles - Snake Charmer

When I was researching Spanish Hill early on, I had the pleasure to meet Dick Cowles - who later would become one of the cofounders of SRAC and has been a good friend to me ever since. Dick is 89 years old and has lived all over the United States as well as all over the world during WWII.

Dick still drives down from Caton, NY every Thursday to give tours on the SRAC Exhibit Hall and when we get a slow time - we get a chance to sit down and just chat for a bit. In the past from time to time, Dick has told me about his experiences during WWII, living on a base in India right next door to the Taj Mahal for a while even, and about so many interesting things he did overseas let alone the scary war times as well...

The last chat we had a few weeks ago was about one of his experiences in India - specifically about a snake charmer...

Dick says that he was walking with his buddies in the streets of India one day and there was a snake charmer sitting on the ground "charming" a king cobra in a basket and with another huge snake wrapped around his neck. Well Dick then noticed that the cobra didn't seem too interested in being "charmed" and even seemed "drunk" - in fact, he said it wouldn't even come out of the basket until coaxed with a stick...So he decided to impress his buddies by paying the charmer to let HIM charm the snake... SO he bartered with the charmer and ended up giving him enough cash to buy his flute and then promptly sat down, crossed his legs and had the large snake draped over his shoulders and then the cover was lifted off the basket in front of him....He says that again the charmer had to prod as the king cobra but when he did - - the cobra came up, crowned it's head and stared Dick straight in the eyes --- to the point that Dick had to ask himself just what he had gotten himself into this time!....He then laughingly explained that although he couldn't say that he was playing a song on the flute, that there was alot of sounds coming out of it just the same!

Just then his buddy shot this picture:

Dick Cowles - Snake Charmer

Just yesterday we had our annual SRAC board and volunteer cookout at the house and I am reminded of just how blessed I am to know and volunteer with these wonderful people every week. We did have a short board meeting at the cookout - and the highlight for everyone was that Dick had brought this photo for me to see and I had him tell the story to the board members before we got down to business....

I know that my life has been forever changed and enlightened by being a part of this place we built to house local artifacts and yet has proven to possess so much more for everyone who walks in our doors...