Just to steer us back to the topic... What was the thing that first got people here interested?

I know mine. A circus my father took me to as a child had a burm, and you could go get photos with it. I wanted a photo, so they sat me on a hay bale and put the tail end on my lap with someone managing the bulk of it. That was my first experience with any reptile. I didn't have negative religious associations of snakes, my mother wasn't there so she didn't teach me her fear.

Years later a teacher had an iguana in the class room, and we got extra credit for babysitting it over weekends and holidays. My weekend came up in that really big snowstorm in 98? I'm not sure now. But I did have that little bright green Houdini for almost two weeks.

i think having no adults around me who were afraid helped. I couldn't learn it early and by the time I did figure out other people were scared it was too late.