In the Maryland of my youth, I often encountered black snakes. They were mousers, living in the fields and edges around our homes. These snakes were big, often 5-feet long and technically were called black rat snakes or pilot black snakes.
While they were feared, they actually didn’t chase or harm us, though we tempted them to. I whacked more than a few with a long stick on their backs, as a 6-year-old boy, and they did retaliate.
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