Large Snake Displayed Beside Parked Car, 1950s

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Large Snake Displayed Beside Parked Car, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Large Snake Displayed Beside Parked Car, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-54D67F

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Someone caught a very large snake — a constrictor of the boa or anaconda variety, thick as a man's forearm and coiled heavily on the pavement — and the correct response, in the 1950s as in most eras, was to bring it to the parking lot and stand next to it. The man in the navy polo shirt rests a hand on his hip with the practiced ease of someone who has been doing this for several minutes and intends to keep doing it until everyone who needs to see the snake has seen it.

The pale yellow car beside them, with its chrome trim and wide-body proportions, was new enough to still be a point of pride, which made it a reasonable backdrop for a trophy that had no other obvious mounting option. The blurred figure walking past in white pants suggests not everyone felt the same urgency about the occasion.

Whatever body of water or rural stretch produced this animal, the men here had already moved past the catching and were deep into the display phase, which has always been the more important half of the enterprise. The snake, for its part, appears to have no opinion about the car.

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