"For whatever reason—I have no clue what compelled me to say this—but I went, 'Mom! Mom!' And here you are trying to lead like nine guys behind you. Your credibility just went right down the drain."
…Another time, I was leading a crew into a fire on the Tonto. It was desert, I was hot. It was in the evening, and we were hiking down a sand wash to a fire that was on down. And as we were going down, it was real thick with desert broom or bush, and I thought, "We probably shouldn't be down in the wash,"because that's where the snakes are. And so we kind of got up on the side hill, and we're side hilling along, and everybody's walking behind. We're going along into this fire, and it's dark. So we have our little head lamps on. You've probably seen that, so we have our head lamps on. We came to kind of a rock outcrop that we had to go over. And so you're always warned, in the desert you don't ever put your hands where you can't see your hands, because something might be there. So I put my hands on either side, I kind of handed my shovel back to the guy behind me, and I put my hands on either side and I kind of pulled myself up. And I was nose to nose with a Gila monster. (laughs)
Kern: What's a Gila monster?
Zettler: Oh, it's like a big lizard—a big Arizona lizard. They're protected. They're deadly if they actually could get a bite on you, but they don't bite real readily. I imagine if you picked it up and let it glom onto your hand, they have a deadly poison, but they are pretty harmless, I'd have to say. This one was about this long. He was pink and black, about that big around. Big lizard, looks kind of like an iguana thing. Anyways, we're nose to nose with this thing. And for whatever reason—I have no clue what compelled me to say this—but I went, "Mom! Mom!" And here you are trying to lead like nine guys behind you. Your credibility just went right down the drain.