QUICK WITH A HOE!

Max Mazzetti, an old-timer of long standing in Valley Center (he was last year’s Western Days parade grand marshal), an 87-year old gentleman who uses a can to help him get around.
But to Susan Sawyer he’s a hero.
Sunday night Sawyer, who lost a beloved dog a couple of weeks ago to a rattler bite, saw another of the slithery reptiles on the front porch at her home on Mazzetti Lane, north of the casino, near the hillside.
It was a 5-foot red diamond, a big one.
She screamed and Mazzetti came over in his stocking feet with a hoe and dispatched the snake before the firefighters arrived.
“I thought I’d better get over there before it gets away,” he told The Roadrunner. “I chopped it up.”
The fire department arrived shortly too.
“They are very good. They showed up real fast,” said Mazzetti.
Mazzetti has been taking care of rattlers for ages and it used to be a summer tradition at The Roadrunner for him to bring one of his latest trophies over to the paper office for a photo.
“Van Quackenbush [the publisher at that time] used to joke and tell me I was bringing over the same snake!”