It was a moment starting me on a path I still follow today. Gerald, my future father-in-law, wanted me to join him in getting a rattlesnake. At the time, I didn’t know if he wanted to get rid of me as a suitor to his daughter or genuinely wanted assistance hunting the largest rattlesnake species in North America.

The snake’s location was a hole dug in a canal dike at a place he frequently went fishing. We didn’t have a plan, but we did have a single-shot .22 rifle and a lot of enthusiasm.