WALKER, Mich.- Some on the West Side of Grand Rapids say they remember it like yesterday, but it has been 40 years since the “Summer of Sid” in Walker.
“Big Sid” was a 16-foot-long reticulating python snake that slithered through backyards, wetlands and farm fields.
He escaped from a traveling circus passing through Walker in 1978. He was considered a frightening monster able to swallow pets and even small children. Sid was loose for a month before a couple on a bike ride spotted him sunbathing along Maynard Avenue
“It was evening and we are coming back and the snake was stretched full length along the side of the street,” recalls Pat Rapolevich.
“He started going back into the brush and then he turned around and came back at me,” remembers her husband Steve Rapolevich. “I grabbed him and flipped him on to the pavement. We ended up getting a lot of people grabbing on.”
“Big Sid” lived at John Ball Zoo for a while before his owner took him back out on the road. He died a few years later of pneumonia.
But his legend lives on in west Michigan where a brewery named a beer after him and a restaurant serves a Big Sid kielbasa sandwich.
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