Wolfgang wrote:

We (well, some of
us, anyway) actively discouraged the kids from killing them.


It appears you never lived in east, north, or central Texas as well as any
other state that surrounds it. The only snakes that ever bother me are
copperheads, water mocasins, rattlesnakes, oh, I almost the coral snakes that
lived in our back yard where I grew up as a kid. It is seldom when you get
around water that you can go for an hour without seeing a poisionus snake. I
once watched a kid in Lubbock bait fishing and the bait was baby rattlesnakes.
The damn things are everywhere, I saw a copperhead in the back yard yesterday.

Big Dale