Whippersnapper or Whipper-snapper and the Speed of Sound

                                                        Whippersnapper or Whipper-snapper

Today you get a lesson and a story.  A whippersnapper is a small child who is ornery like my 28 year old son, Chase.  When he was small (that is a relative term since he was always big), see picture of whippersnapper.  He was very ornery and now that he is big, 6' 5" and 235 lbs, he is still ornery.  Just to clarify we use to live on the golf course, Westbury in Yukon, and he and his best friend put a dead mouse in the cup on the green.  They hid and watched folks when they went to retrieve their balls from the cup.  Almost everyone thought it was clever and funny except one person who looked for them and chewed them out and yelled at the parents, my wife.  She asked, "what kind of parent are you?".  That golfer needed to lighten up.  If you don't agree then you need to lighten up and take some blood pressure pills.

Whippersnapper - Chase

Now I guess you could include Eddy Harris and I in that category when we were young as well.  Just a thought but my dad was ornery, I was ornery and my son was and is ornery, do you think it could be hereditary?  Anyway I think it had something to do with the tall grass prairie as Eddy was ornery with me.  Another side thought, Eddy was a cousin?   Hummmmmm!  Just for example, I remember when Eddy and I were young and we found some pink paint and painted the chicken house pink.  We thought it was fun and I don't know if it was good for the chickens or not.  Did I mention the eggs looked pink after that?

Well back to the definition thing.  Now that you know what a whippersnapper is let me explain a whipper-snapper.  First you have to have a bull whip, see picture, and two whippersnappers, Eddy and me.

 Eddy and I were out using the bull whip and acting like we were the Rifleman (an old western series).  Now just in case you did not know what causes that cracking sound of a bull whip let me explain.  It comes from cracking the speed of sound.  Can you believe that?  If not just look it up or read below from Wikipedia.

Wikipedia:

A bullwhip is a single-tailed whip, usually made of braided leather, which was originally used as a tool for working with livestock.

Bullwhips are agricultural tools, traditionally used to control livestock in open country. A bullwhip's length, flexibility, and tapered design allows it to be thrown in such a way that, toward the end of the throw, part of the whip exceeds the speed of sound—thereby creating a small sonic boom.^[1] Many modern "sport" whip crackers claim that the bullwhip was rarely, if ever, used to strike cattle, but this is a matter for debate.

 Anyway, Eddy and I were cracking the whip and when it was my turn something went wrong.  The bull whip wrapped around my neck and cracked just as it hit my cheek (face not butt).  Man did that hurt and it left a welt on my face.  So the moral of this story is when two whippersnappers go whipper-snapping the whippersnappers may get whipper-snapped and that really hurts.

Thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com