Some folks were talking about them, so I'm about to tweet two family stories about rattlesnakes, so if you don't want a snek story, this is the thread to mute.

So my Grandpa, this is my Grandpa on my mother's side, Grandpa Jim who I never met because he died on Christmas Eve before we got there, was a cattleman in South Dakota. So he was out riding a fair amount, working. And sometimes there were rattlesnakes.

And sometimes they were in between him and something he needed to get to, sometimes they had a hole by some fence that needed fixing, and this made them inconvenient rattlesnakes to him, and he'd get rid of them. If they started going into a hole or cranny...

(I pause here to say that these stories do not end well for the sneks in question, so if you need not to hear about snek death, it would be wise to stop reading this thread. Sorry I forgot to say that up top.)

(My choices around snek safety are different from theirs, fwiw.)

OK, ready for the next bit?

Anyhow, if the rattlesnake dived for a hole or crevice next to the fence post Grandpa needed to be working on, a couple times he grabbed the tail of the snake, hauled it out, and cracked it like a whip. Wasn't maybe the best way to kill a snake, and kind of show-offy, really.