I have been around snakes since I was a kid, as my Dad was a herpetologist for a while. He caught the 20 foot Anaconda in the movie Robinson Carusoe.

When I lived in Lyle Washington, and was commuting to the Martin Marietta smelting plant for work at nights, I would always come across rattle snakes laying on the asphalt at night. After seeing this a few times, I decided to start catching a few and brought them home to let go by the Klickitat river.

My jeep broke down and I had to use my Moms' Honda Civic to go to work one night. I loaded up my snake stick and pillow case and headed to work. Needless to say, it was a bumper night for rattlers, and managed to get 6 of them squeezed in to a knotted Pillow case. Went to bed, and was abruptly woken up by my mother beating me in the head with a broom. She evidently didn't take to kindly to moving the pillow case in the back seat of her car, and hearing 6 rattle snakes go apesh!t in the pillow case. I had to get a ride to work from my neighbor until my jeep was repaired. Gotta love Moms'.