Snake Mary

[Wilson Gray]

Baltimore Afro-American April 28, 1934, headline
               SEEK WITCH GIRL
 "_Snake Mary_" Is Sought in Fairy Killing


Apparently, who or what "Snake Mary" is depends on where you are. I'd never
heard of Snake Mary, in either Marshall or St. Louis, before I went to Los
Angeles in 1957. There, the local bruz, when calling upon Lady Luck in the
course of a game of chance, would shout,

"Snake Mary! Hunch me, Snake!"

And I haven't heard it since, possibly because I don't gamble. In the
aforementioned instance, I was hanging out at the L.A. chapterhouse of my
fraternity and I was shocked, shocked! that there was gambling going on.

In BE, _hunch_ as a verb means "nudge." Naturally, the standard noun is
also known and, of course, any noun can be verbed. So, I was never able to
decide whether Snake Mary was being called upon to nudge the player when
the proper time to go all in came or to give the player a hunch as to how
to proceed over the course of the game.

In the banner spread above, "fairy" means "gay man." I had *no* idea that
"fairy" could ever  have been used so casually in the headline of one of
the "Big Three" of national black newspapers. My initial impression was
that a witch, some kind of Snake Mary, had killed somebody else with magic.
Then I read the article.

Youneverknow.

OT: trashnews headline:

"Scary Proof That Something Is About To Happen!"

-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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