[calex59]

You've read about people getting bitten, but how is your personal experience. I know about 5 people who have been chomped by snakes and not one of the people were playing or handling snakes! They were bitten in the wild by snakes that were in the wild. Chances of being bitten are low if you are not where the snakes live, if you are where they live chances go up exponentially.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I have never seen a rattlesnake in the wild in my life. I grew up in Queens and handled garden ("garter") snakes as a boy all the time.

Not counting the odd case of encountering a harmless snake during a walk in the woods, I've had two and a half experiences with snakes as an adult. Once a snake found it's way into my basement. My wife let out a blood curdling scream and somehow I just knew it had to be a snake. From the volume and intensity, I was sure it was a six-foot water moccasin. I was relieved to find a 15" garden snake, which I picked up and tossed over on the edge of my yard. (Never saw another snake in the house.) On another occasion, my four year old daughter who was playing on her swing set next to the wood pile came running into the front yard nearly hysterical shouting "Get Daddy, get Daddy!" I knew that there was only one problem in life that automatically required my urgent attention. I went back and found what I took to be a garden snake that had come out of the wood pile. Instead of running away, he stood his ground, hissing and spitting. I scooped him up and he began to writhe and twist, he managed to come around and bite me, the only snake bite I've ever had. Instead of gently leaving him in a corner of the garden, I tossed him about 30' and left him on his own. Further research leads me to believe that he as probably a hog snake, a feisty relative of a garden snake.

The half experience was following a real estate agent in my car when I first married. There was a 6' water moccasin writhing in pain near the center line, apparently hit by a previous car. The r.e. agent pulled right to avoid it, and as I did the same my wife yelled "Hit it, hit it." She was absolutely serious.

We did vacation in Arizona in 1999 and were warned about rattlesnakes in the trails in National Parks. My wife played good Japanese Wife and followed three steps behind me all day.

I had a friend who stationed in the AF in Texas and at lunch time they'd go over to the running track with a pole with a noose at the end and collect rattlesnakes for research @ $10/each. His very Jewish very Northeastern wife used to participate too, until one day she picked up a dead female. Unbeknownst to her rattlers are viviparous, they carry their eggs in a pouch until they hatch. Well, dozens and dozens of baby rattlers came pouring out of the dead mom.