About 40 years ago, I walked out to my step-dad’s (a Polish man who’d spent the war in Stalag 13 near Nuremberg) back yard for a visit. I saw him furiously hacking the ground with a hoe. When I asked what he was doing, he replied, “Ah’m killin sneck”! I reminded him that the garter snake he’d just hacked to pieces was beneficial, he replied, “Ah tells you, Frahnk, sneck eez sneck”!
Miss Kitty brought in some kind of snake. It was wrapped around her several times. By the time she unwrapped it and dropped it in the living room, I’d decided not to let loose with a gun and opted for granny’s heavy cast iron skillet. A couple weeks later, the neighbor lady sheepishly asked if Mr. b and I had been fighting because she heard me hollering, “Die, die, die, you _____!” Ha, no just killing a snake. Miss Kitty became an indoor cat after that.
The same neighbor thought her son was playing a joke on her when she spied a snake on the mantle. It wasn’t a rubber snake when she went to grab it.
Now days, with all the cats, they come and go freely inside and out. Such cute things bring me snakes and bugs several times a day and drop them at my bare feet. Look, ma, I brought you a present!
I agree with your step-dad. The only good snake is a dead one.