Am reminded of a snake story of my youth. One afternoon my gramps and I were fishing by ourselves. I was in the stern of our home built jon boat running the motor and gramps was on the bow. I ran in close to the bank under a low hanging tree branch, knocking a huge black snake off his perch and into the boat. That's the moment all hell broke loose. Gramps, being deathly afraid of snakes, grabbed up the canoe paddle and started wildly whacking at the snake, shouting the whole time. I cut the motor and drew my bare feet up so snake wouldn't go up my pant leg. Snake was thrashing frantically, looking for a way out of this crazy place. Gramps was yelling, hitting everything but the snake, with his paddle. I was fearing for my life when gramps hit my big toe a mighty whack, breaking it. That was enough. Despite the pain in my toe, I went over the side, along with the snake. Gramps sat down, breathing hard from his workout. When we got home dad asked "Ike, why ya wet and limping"?
That reminds me of a story, I read about an old Indian, who came upon a young brave, who was killing a black snake. He told the boy "Don't kill the snakes...they are your friends"! Later, the boy saw that the old Indian had killed some black snakes, and when he questioned him about it, the old Chief replied, "Sometimes, you can have too damned many friends"!