In Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin writes, “Half the truth is often a great lie.” One of my half-truths is that I’m not an outdoors person. When I think back to school field trips, I was far more excited about going to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston than I was to the Oil Ranch—too much heat and hay for my taste. And when I was forced to help my mom plant flowers in our yard, I did so with ample teenage attitude. Truthfully, I wanted to dunk those Dusty Millers into their holes and toss some mulch on top so I could resume watching TGIF reruns, preferably with Fruit by the Foot in hand.
My half-truth concealed the fact that I was terrified of snakes—a response to a truth lurking just behind the great lie that everything at home was fine, which it most certainly was not. My dad’s passion for gardening had gradually morphed into hoarding throughout my teenage years, and discarded plastic containers and bags of leaves lined every corner of our yard, attracting all manner of scaly creatures.
Years prior, I recall waltzing through the reptile house at
