![]() ![]() She’s been his accomplice since the beginning, when aquariums and cages lined the walls of their first marital home. He plans to teach Bruce how to handle snakes, whether or not they ever keep one as a pet. Now, 26 years later, Bean is open to bringing another snake into the house when his 8-year-old son gets a little older. He ended up selling most of the reptiles at the pet store. This particular python had to finish shedding before anyone tried to feed him again.īean got out of the snake business when his landlord discovered his home herpetarium. It was just me.”īean managed to escape by sliding out of his shoes and socks and wrestling the snake back into its cage. “I realized this snake was a lot stronger than I was - this snake could kill me. “That was the first time I was ever really scared,” Bean said. That’s when the snake started wrapping itself around his feet and legs. Bean grabbed him by the head to keep from getting bit. The python rose up about 5 feet off the floor to strike at what he thought was an extra-big meal. What this semi-blind python smelled when released was a young man who had been handling dinner. “When they’re molting, their eyes haze over and they can’t really see all that well,” he said. When he got to the 18-footer, he realized it was molting - shedding its outer layer of skin. Bean would take one out and let it loose on the floor with its food. Bean was feeding rabbits to three pythons measuring 13, 17, and 18 feet.Īll were in the same cage but had to be fed one at a time. Naunet belongs to Homer Plentl and Melissa Disbrow of Marble Falls.Ī worse encounter with a snake happened at the pet store one day after everyone else had gone home. I was there trying to teach them that snakes are tame and won’t hurt you. “I was bleeding like crazy, and these first- and second-graders were freaking out. “Honduran milk snakes don’t have fangs, but they have big teeth,” he said. ![]() Love him they did - until blood started running down Bean’s arm from five different bites. “I warned him that the snake wasn’t tame enough, but he was really colorful, and my boss said the kids would love him.” “My boss insisted I take him,” Bean said of the milk snake. No big deal, that is, unless you are a first- or second-grader watching as a large Honduran milk snake attacks its handler giving a class demonstration. “Then, it just leaves these little needly dots in the shape of a snake’s mouth on you. “You have to let them chew on you until they’re done,” Bean said. That instinctive jerk harms both snake and handler and can lead to infection. Naunet was named for an Egyptian snake goddess.īean learned that non-venomous snakes have fine, needle-like teeth that stick in your flesh if you yank the snake away. “I don’t remember how I learned to do that,” he said. Waving his left hand slowly in front of the snake’s face, Bean would wait until head and hand were in sync then reach behind with his other hand to grab the snake by the back of its head. “You know how the snake charmer plays music and moves back and forth really slowly? A lot of people think it’s the noise that charms the snake. ![]() “I used to use a technique, kind of like a snake charmer,” he said. He even sold captured non-venomous snakes for extra money: $10 for a rat snake $25 for a corn snake. Instead of a check, take-home pay came in the form of snakes, lizards, and the small prey needed to feed them, mostly mice and crickets.īean caught wild snakes to build his collection. “I wanted a pet, so I went to the pet store and bought a bull snake,” Bean said of his life immediately after high school.Ī full-time employee at Zimmerman Sign Company, he picked up a part-time job at Pet Palace. ![]() As a young adult in Longview, he kept more than 40 snakes and lizards in his apartment and regularly wrangled reptiles from the wild to sell in pet stores. Ophidiophobia - the fear of snakes - does not afflict Victory Media art director David Bean. ![]()
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