My wife said I was insane.
She’d already taken off running when she saw the snake.
The five foot or larger ones scare me.
My mother taught us how to catch snakes. I have a respect for them, but not fear. Of course, that would be different if I lived where there were dangerous snakes, like in India.
I remember in AF Summer Camp (Eglin AFB, Fl.) some Rangers showed us some of the indigenous snakes. They brought out a box of pine snakes and put clumps of the serpents into the laps of the people on the end and said, “pass them down.” I was one chair in from the end. The guy who was on the end shrank back, so I picked the snakes up and passed them out. He finally took one from me and liked it so much he didn’t want to put it back.
For most people, you just need to get to know ‘em. ‘Em the snakes, that is, not ‘em the people.