Turtles, tadpoles, axolotls (immature salamanders, to the uninitiated), red-eared sliders, and spring peepers drew me to the rivers, creeks, and swamps of southeastern Minnesota, where I grew up. I haunted the parks and woods with my buddies. We mail-ordered boa constrictors and caimans from Louisiana, and our parents got used to discovering reptiles and amphibians in our heating ducts and couches and cars.
College wasn?t as compelling, and I dropped out in my second year, though I am and always have been an eclectic reader and learner. I drifted from job to job and from place to place; I was a bookstore manager in Duluth and a cabinetmaker in Rochester. Finally, I wound up on 128 acres of wooded land in western Wisconsin, where I started a jewelry business with a partner.
Murphy Design?s first phone line went to one of our tents. Our refrigerator was propped against a tree. I was delighted when a 54-inch timber rattler appeared under the workshop I was building (the rattler?s Latin name, Crotalus horridus horridus, tells you how most people feel about it). I captured it, as I captured many rattlers over the years, and moved it to safer territory. The last rattler I picked up didn?t appreciate my interest and bit me on the thumb. Now I stick to the startlingly pretty little red-bellied snakes, hog-nosed snakes, and corn snakes that follow mice into the workshop, which I visit only on weekends since I moved to Minneapolis.
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