In my 18th summer, I took a job, working in a section gang on the old Erie Railroad. Our job was track maintainence and repair: Jack up the crossties,tamp ballast rock under them,drive in fresh spikes. I quickly learned it isn't easy walking down the crossties, because of the way they are spaced. I also learned copperheads sometimes lurked between the ties: hard to see, because they were the same color as the ballast rock. The "old hands" had a "surefire" way of spotting copperheads: "Be alert for the smell of cucumbers", they said."If you smell cucumbers anywhere around you,stop...