I have always loved snakes for as long as I can remember. I remember my neighbor (uncle hank) calling me over to catch a garter snake out of a patch of mint they were growing by their house. You called all adult friends of the family uncle or aunt out of respect back in those days. It was the summer between 1st and 2nd grade then so I must have been about 6 or 7. I remember my Dad caught a baby Massasuaga rattler in early fall of the same year and brought it home in a galvanized bucket. I begged him to let me take it to school for show and tell. Needless to say he didn't.

From then on, I was a full blown addict for which there was no 12 step program. I read everything I could get my hands on that pertained to reptiles. I especially liked the books "the Living World of Reptiles" by Karl P. Shmidt and Robert F. Inger as well as "Reptiles of North America" by Raymond L. Ditmars. Some of the older reptile enthusiasts here may have surmised that is where I came up with my blog name. For those of you who don't know the name, he was really the father of american herpetology.

I caught every snake that existed in Michigan, ( and had been bitten by the same) other than the Massasuaga. I never found one of my own. I loved the Fox snake as it was about the largest snake you could find there. I remember I once caught a female that gave birth to about twenty offspring. That was a surprise. I caught my fair share of snapping and painted turtles, frogs, and salamanders too.

I had a ball python, corn snake, california king snake, eastern coachwhip, reticulate python, and a ball python, all before 1980. That may seem like nothing today, but trust me when I say in 1979, I was an outlier.

Then in 1988 I got married. That was the end, and I feared there would be no return of "The Salad Days". The wife and I had 3 female critters. But not to lose all hope, as all of them are very comfortable with reptiles.

Fast forward about 15+ years and my 8 yr old daughter seems to be really interested in snakes. Three years of convincing the wife later, and she finally gets her first BP. Now she is expecting her first clutch of eggs early July and we finished making the incubator together a couple weeks ago. So the story continues.