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 Snakes Alive!

Mermaid says you ‘ got to love the sound of a rattler when you least expect it’. Yeah, that'll snap your garters, for sure.

Actually, seeing a rattler, especially a big one, especially if you’re not taken off guard, is a treat. They are really beautiful animals. Their scales look almost like feathers. In the wild, they are not as aggressive as water moccasins or Copperheads (either kind), usually being preoccupied with the business of being a rattlesnake.

Years back, I worked outdoors along side of a kid from the big city. I chewed his ass out when he wantonly killed a small snake .  I trying to learn to control my temper so I tried to smooth things over by telling him that some American Indians believed snakes to be messengers to the gods.
Later, he was telling the other hands not to kill snakes in front of the Perfesser (as I was known, then) because “Its against his religion”. So, naturally, that bunch of misfits got the idea that I was some kind of Snake Handler, but that’s neither here, nor there.

I don’t mean to minimize the very real danger of snakebite, by the way. A rattlesnake bite can mean loss of limb, or death, if you spook or fool with them.
While this sounds scary, they’re not really any more dangerous some women who shouldn't be spooked or fooled with. Both will shake their tail before ruining a fellow's day, though for dissimilar reasons; again, neither here, nor there.

The smaller rattles make attractive jewelry and the larger ones are purported to improve the sound of a guitar when dropped inside.
I ran into an obsessive/compulsive type at a jam session who must have had a half dozen rattles inside his guitar. He figured that if one would make his cheap guitar sound good, six would make it sound like a Martin.
I believe the real reason for dropping rattles inside a guitar is to keep rats out of it.

Where I live, rattlesnakes are raced, eaten, worn as both clothing and jewelry, made into motorcycle tank bibs and entered in beauty contests.

The next time a rat doesn’t nest in your air box or chew your wires, thank a snake.