Hillbilly Rampage Or A Feud Is A Feud

Filed under: Crime, Shooting 

Marion, Alabama - As this is AmericaAmerica reviews and not some horrible, soulless place without Andy Griffith like Soviet Russia or EuroDisney, I assume most of us have seen some episode of The Andy Griffith Show at some point in our lives. If you haven’t, well then I pity you. Or envy you – I’m conflicted. Does anyone remember an episode entitled A Feud is a Feud? In this one, a young couple show up at Andy’s late one night wanting to be married. The two are members, respectively, of long feuding mountain families in the area. Long story short, Andy nearly gets his banjo-stroking ass capped performing the ceremony. The episode was obviously meant to parody the famous Hatfield/McCoy feud that claimed the lives of a dozen members of both families between 1800 and 1891. I wish I could say the assholes in this story were just poking fun at that old feud when they clashed violently in front of the Marion City Hall in Marion, Alabama – but I think they were fairly serious.

Sgt. Carlton Hogue of the Perry County Sheriff’s Department, who surely would think that normally, his department had a general handle on the whole blood-feud-a-brewin’ thing, said “all hell broke loose“. Apparently, the two or three year old feud prompted a fight after a basketball game the same night a member of the other family had their windows shot out. Coincidence? I think not. The next day students from the two families began an argument at an area high school where the students were found to have shotguns in their vehicles. Evidently, the kids were taken to City Hall, and that’s when toothless, six-fingered members of both families showed up, and like Cleavon Little said in Blazing SaddlesBlazing Saddles reviews, “…baby, they was ready fo’ business!” Apparently, the two competing clans of caterwauling cousins collided outside, throwing tire irons, and anything else they could lay their lumpy, inbred hands on. The whole thing deteriorated into an all out riot involving well over a hundred people. Marion’s Chief of Police and the Mayor were both reportedly hurt (and embarrassed) during the rumble. A church-affiliated women’s school in Marion cautioned its students and staff to stay out of the downtown area for safety. Watch out – lurking rednecks may throw shit at you.

The two students were arrested, along with five or six others (reports vary) later at the City Hall fracas. What happened to the rest? Were all one hundred and some people bystanders and onlookers? Or did the remaining family members skitter off into the countryside, armed to the teeth with items one might have used some two hundred years ago in the mining, timber or moon-shining industries. I vote for the latter, out of caution. As I suppose there must be a glimmer of hope for all of us, the Hatfields and McCoys agreed to stop a-feudin’ back in 1891. They even signed an actual peace treaty in June of 2003 as a symbol to unite Americans after 9-11. I just have one question. Where then, does the week long event that was the Hatfields vs. McCoys edition of the game show Family Feud originally broadcast in 1979 fit exactly? They played for a pig and the buzzer sound was changed to gunfire. Really. I’m not making this shit up. Richard fucking Dawson and all. Anyway, my whole point here is this: that pig is now 30 years old and ready to talk. Someone get to that pig.

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