After Trish and I went to the Redneck Games last July, I knew I had to mark my calendar for the Claxton Rattlesnake Roundup. This marvelous event, held the second weekend in March, began in 1968 in an effort to reduce the rattlesnake population in the city. Now I think they have to truck in the snakes to round them up.
Sadly, Trish had to beg out to host a basketball tournament with the Savannah Storm. My friend Royce agreed to make the trek with me.
We got there early (9 a.m.) for the “3-D archery tournament.” It seemed promising, but the two of us made up 66.6 percent of the audience. The other spectator was an archer’s significant other, and I swear she was wearing pajama jeans.
While looking for the snake handling demonstrations, we ran across the entrance to the “birds of prey” area, which also doubled as home base for the gun raffle …
… and taxidermy expo.
We meandered outside and found the namesake snakes.
They were angry.
Around the corner, we spotted our first (and only) snake handler of the day. She was showing off a yellow rat snake.
Of course, we had to join in.
This is also where we spotted our first mullet. And what a glorious mullet it was (made even better by the Spiderman face paint).
We went back to the car to gather the energy (found in the cooler in my trunk) to continue. It was a good thing we did. We needed sustenance for the things we would see:
A coonskin cap
A coonskin snake
A many-skinned truck
A fish in a truck
Some knobbly butts
Rattlesnake queen
Stuffed acid-washed jeans
Stuffed coiled-up snake
Cantilevered waist
Human hamster balls
Massive overalls
A country fair is never complete without fried alligator and spiral potatoes.
That’s it. That’s all we could take. Royce is trying to talk me into going to the Warrior Dash. Maybe …
Observe and report 
I think I might want to compete in the Warrior Dash. It looks pretty fun.
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I’m so glad that the acid-washed jeans also had zippers at the bottom.
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They are lovely, no?
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Just when I thought I missed the deep south, I see these photos and it hits me, “WTF is wrong with some of these people?!?!?!” Of course, western Kentucky doesn’t fare much better, most natives consider teeth to be optional. Thanks for the smiles.
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