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[pct-l] Rattlesnakes in town



Growing up in southern California on the edge of a canyon made for some great 
interludes with snakes; rattlers, gardners and kings.  One really dry summer 
in the early '70's I came home from school and decided to take a swim in the 
pool.  Fortunately I happened to see something lick over the edge of the coping 
and didn't dive in.  A large, 5 or 6 foot, rattler had come up out of the 
canyon smelling water and had fallen into the pool and couldn't get enough 
leverage to get back out, so he was just swimming around and around sticking his 
head out and failing.  I alerted my older brothers and we planned our attack.  
When my dad came home he concurred on our strategy and we set to work.  My older 
brother got a rake and scooped the snake out and onto the lawn.  The snake 
was so tired by then he wasn't too quick and was easily pinned down.  My dad 
drew his 3 iron golf club out and drove the poor snake's head back into the 
canyon.  

I'm pretty sad about this in hind sight as we probably could have just thrown 
the live snake back into the canyon, as tired as he was.  We skinned him 
(Monte would have loved the meat!) and dried the skin and rattles out stretched 
out with nails on a board.  

I had the skin on my bedroom wall and it woke up my cat one afternoon when a 
slight breeze caught it and rattled the rattles.

Strider