I grew up on the edge of Jackson MS near Yudan about a decade earlier in an area now ghetto which spawned David Banner....gangsta rap southern black style
We were on edge of rural with creeks and swamps and deep woods
Full of water moccasins and southern diamondbacks ....big fat enormous headed pit vipers the latter
Folks got bit
We had neighbors with 4 teen boys who caught them and kept a dozen in a terrarium type tank
They would handle the biggest rattler a bit especially if wasn’t hungry
Nobody messed with the cottonmouths....they would strike a stick like nothing
I think rattlers could sense human arm?
We’d all catch rodents to watch them feed
One rattler was so big he had his own tank
He got out one day and momma laid down the law
They took the snakes out on a nearby farm and let them all go
I inherited some decent sized corn snakes....they lived to bite me
Why does that sound like a backwaters blues song?
:D