I must have been 5 years old, we were playing at my dad's house near N. Cave Creek Rd and Cinnabar in the 85020 area. Looks way different now, but back then was just a few streets and The Mountain as we boys called it. My brother and his friend (both dead now) were three years older than me and we were climbing the Mountain one fine Sunday when as we got around a big rock my brother screams "Rattlesnake" and along with our pal jumps from the ledge and runs to safety. Lil ole me is petrified and froze from fear right next to a coiled Rattler. This is Phoenix of the early 60's and no one around, the Yuppies have yet to be invented never mind discover this poor white trash neighborhood. My brother and his pal keep encouraging me to jump yelling "The snake's gonna get ya". Not only am I petrfified but the jump looks like 10 feet easy and I was afraid I would break a leg. Well, Mr. Snake and I musta been eyeball to eyeball for quite a while before I got the nerve to jump. I was sure he was gonna bite my backside at the very least, but he didn't. Y'see, snakes don't like to waste energy and they like even less to waste precious venom on meatsacks that they cannot eat. You really have to piss a snake off before he will strike and even moreso before he will allow his venom to flow.
Been mentioned already, if I had a rattler problem I would get me some King snakes.
Been mentioned already too, this is a double thread of snakes.
Someone else said it in the other thread, when all you got is a hammer, everything appears to look like nails.