ARIZONA REPUBLIC (Phoenix) 28 December 05 Staring at snake eyes - Man educates public about creepy-crawlies (Linda Helser)
If little Charlie Siegel ever wonders just how much his mom and dad love him, all he has to do is remember his fourth birthday party.
It featured plenty of pizza, party favors and pint-size partygoers.
And, oh yes, there was also the passel of live snakes and lizards, big ones, small ones and everything in between.
"It's what he loves," said his mom, Suzanne, 38, who, along with her husband, Dan, couldn't love reptiles less. "I'm terrified of them, particularly snakes, but that's what he wanted for his party."
When Rich Ihle of Mesa showed up at the Siegel residence in Phoenix with his traveling Reptile Adventures show for Charlie's recent Saturday morning birthday party, the boy and his peers couldn't wait to ogle and touch while their parents couldn't wait not to.
"I can't believe I let them in my house," said a visibly edgy Dan, 39, as Ihle carted in plastic container after container of snakes and lizards. "Let's keep track of how many he brings in and make sure he takes them out when he goes."
Orphidiophobia, or less formally the fear of snakes, is the No. 1 phobia among women, according to a study conducted by Purdue University. It ranks almost as high with men.
Symptoms can include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread.
When the fear significantly affects one's life, it's considered a phobia, not just a fear.
Ihle, who has owned reptiles since he was a small boy in Iowa, knows all too well about the fear/phobia of his beloved pets, a collection that numbers in the dozens.
"I lived on a farm as a kid and no one liked them in my family so I could only keep them in a corner of the basement and no one would go down there," he said. "But reptiles were everything to me."
Starting with toads and graduating on to more diverse reptiles as he grew, Ihle, 53, learned how to care for them by trial and error.
When he was old enough to drive, he traveled to other states to collect more exotic and diverse specimens.
When he found copperhead snakes in Missouri and brought the poisonous reptiles homes, his parents offered his new cold-blooded friends a less-than-warm welcome.
"They drew the line and said no to poisonous snakes in the house," he said.
A kindly uncle allowed him to use an old chicken house, which he promptly turned into an insulated snake room.
It was many years and a series of jobs later before Ihle could devote himself exclusively to breeding and raising rare and exotic reptiles, collected from around the world.
And, for the past six years, he's been taking his misunderstood pets to classrooms, school assemblies, Scout meetings, day camps, company parties, special events, reptile exhibits and birthday parties in hopes of expounding their fine points and downplaying their drawbacks.
"If you can educate someone on reptiles, then you can win them over," he said.
But Ihle acknowledges that as his students grow older, the selling job gets tougher.
"Preschoolers are so receptive and every single one of them will touch the reptiles," he said.
"But by the time they're in the second grade, there's definitely more and more who won't touch them."
Charlie's party was a perfect example.
When Ihle asked how many attendees liked reptiles, all the children's hands flew up and few, if any, of the 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds refused to touch or pet his reptiles.
But then, Ihle started with the small and cute and worked his way up to the large and imposing.
Freckled the leopard gecko was the first out of the plastic box, next was his bigger relative, Slim, the blue-tongue skink, followed by Goldie, the very friendly legless lizard who looks more like a snake.
It wasn't until T-Bo, the prehistoric and hefty-looking rhinoceros iguana emerged that parents started drawing deep breaths, even though the children couldn't line up fast enough to stroke him.
After Suzanne mustered the courage to touch T-Bo, her husband was then challenged to show his courage.
"Daddy wants to do it," volunteered Charlie as Millie, the king snake, made her appearance.
Reluctantly, Daddy stepped to the center of the living room and stroked, ever so gingerly, a nonplussed Millie.
"It was soft, actually," said Dan as he reclaimed his position next to other fathers who were not about to step out of line and pet a snake.
"I've just moved here from New York City and I've got no problem with rats and cockroaches because those are indigenous to New York. But snakes?" said Bradley Yonover, 38.
But it wasn't long before Yonover was called out by his buddies with a "Bradley, Bradley, Bradley" chant after ET, the 5-foot-long ball python appeared.
As Ihle draped the python around Yonover's neck, the father of two sank lower and lower as his eyes become bigger and bigger and his tongue popped out.
"I feel like bald-headed Alice Cooper, " said Yonover, who later confided he had an additional sensation.
"I'm proud of myself," he said with all sincerity.
Aaron Krasnow, 31, a Phoenix psychologist who specializes in anxiety, depression and phobias, said Ihle's approach to converting those with reptile phobias into the less fearful is not so unlike the approach he uses in his private practice.
"I do what you call 'exposure therapy' and that's what he's doing but just a superintensive version," he said. Krasnow's approach is a little more gradual.
"I may ask them to first visualize a snake and then I may show them a picture of a snake and then maybe we'll let them see a snake in a cage outside the office and then maybe we'll bring the caged snake into the office," he said. "It's called 'building a hierarchy,' meaning they can get relaxed with a snake at all those different levels."
But it doesn't always work.
"The trouble with working with phobias is there's a element of truth to many of the fears because it's reasonable to be afraid of cobras," he added. "You really need some fear to live safe."
Ihle, however, has nothing but tame and well-socialized reptiles in his repertoire, including Theresa, his super tiger reticulated python that measures about 14 feet in length and has the girth of a hefty man's thigh.
She was the last on Ihle's program and Charlie wasn't the least bit afraid to have Theresa put the squeeze on him.
But party boy's parents were having no part of it.
"Good job," his mom yelled from a very safe distance.
At his second birthday party of the day, Ihle met with similar resistance when he introduced Theresa during Adin Davidoff's fifth birthday bash.
His mom, Amber, 28, literally hid behind a dining room archway during much of the reptile program, admitting she needs to be "heavily sedated" after spotting a snake in the wild near her Phoenix Mountain Preserve home.
But pressure from brave children and Ihle, who was determined prove that her fear was unfounded, forced her out of hiding and into the clutches of the smaller python, ET.
With ET wrapped around her neck, she looked anything but calm. "Do I look scared?" she asked.
Next her husband, Ron, 47, slipped on the bigger python, Theresa, and stood frozen in the middle of his living room while he held his breath.
"It was a leap of faith," he said, "but I'm proud to show my son that I could do it."
Man educates public about creepy-crawlies