(03-11-2024, 09:05 AM)BIAD Wrote: (Sorry to 727Sky for going off topic)
I was aware of the miniseries and it's pencilled-in to be watched. My own modern-day fascination lies in how
this became such a deadly situation worthy of manifesting into Virginian lore.
Did the Press at the time hold the same class-built school of thought that today's media has that implied
supposedly 'uneducated folk' would always deal with such matters in the same manner the Penny-Dreadful
portrayed the Wild West or had that region been singled out due to their assumed isolationism beliefs?
I would dare to say such disputes occurred elsewhere in the US, but this one seems to be the mainstay.
It was already well under way and pretty deadly before the press ever got a hold of the story. When they did, that didn't help matters much. It got sensationalized in short order.
The basis was general attitudes around here. Folks can take umbrage pretty quick, even to this day. For example, I've got a childhood friend cooling his heels in a jail this instant, awaiting trial. Last Tuesday, he was out riding around on a 3-wheeler motorcycle. He is a vet, and lost a leg in the service, so a 3-wheeler is the way to go for him. He's 70 right now. A 32 year old kid was also out tooling around in his car, but yakking on a cell phone at the same time, not paying attention. So he cut Dennis off, which is a dangerous event when it's car against motorcycle.
It escalated pretty quickly from there. Dennis followed the guy to where he parked at a Walmart (the US version of Tesco, I reckon). Dennis started giving the kid a ration of shit for driving dumb, probably using some pretty colorful language, and the kid took umbrage to that, and knocked Dennis flat on his ass... but then kept advancing to give Dennis some more. So, Dennis whipped out his pistol and center-punched the kid, the end.
Then Dennis compounded matters by telling some bystanders he was gonna go over to the Mexican restaurant to get a bite to eat while he waited on the cops to show up... and that while the kid was laying there bleeding out.
Now, in that tragedy, there were several points where it could have been de-escalated, but that's just not the way it usually goes here. Dennis could have just let it the hell go and went on about his business. OR, the kid could have apologized, and gone on about his business. BUT those were not the choices either one made. Now one is dead, and the other is waiting for a life prison sentence at 70 years old.
All over a cell phone conversation and a moment of inattentiveness.
Folks here can just get pretty het up pretty quick, and then all hell breaks loose.
So, strike one is just general attitudes in these here hills. Once it got started, it wasn't going to stop until one side or t'other either cried uncle or was all dead. Some folks around here just have way too much pride to back down, and the result is predictable.
Now, when the press got ahold of it, they seem to have hammered on the "backwardsness" of us hillbillies. That stayed with us for generations. even into the 1950's and 1960's and 1970's, a hundred years after that particular feud. And, by the way, the blood feuds here appear to just be extensions of the blood feuds in Scotland and Ireland of days gone by, and, as I understand it, the feuds between the Border Reiver families.
The isolation of this area carried a guarantee that news of most of the events that happened here would never get out into the World. That feud just happened to be one event that DID get out, and created a sensation. It created an image, and a reputation for backwardness for hillbillies that still prevails to this day out in the World. I've used it to my advantage out there as recently as 2014. All I have to do is talk the part, play the part, and act stupid, and the legends take it from there. Folks out there would automatically categorize me, and it turned them a flip when they found out that I might not be as dumb as I was acting... or as dumb as they expected.
For a long time, Hollywood took their cues from the news media. It's not been that long ago that Ma and Pa Kettle were a big hillbilly deal out in the flatlands. The Beverly Hillbillies. Several episodes of the Twilight Zone. The news media created an image that Hollywood felt compelled to keep alive, and so they did.
The last clan feud around here that I'm aware of was the one between the Duncans and the Grizzles, in the late 1970's into the early 80's - but keep in mind I was gone from here for 30 years and didn't keep up with events much, and when I came back I mostly kept to myself - still do - and don't always get the latest news of what's going on beyond my yard fence.
The Hatfield-McCoy Feud has been over for well over 100 years now. It's so over that the Hatfields and McCoys have been intermarrying for over 100 years, and have big family cookouts and such now... but still the legend, and to some extent the reputation, lives on. It's not like we've not earned it, though, with our overabundance of pride and tendencies towards hot-headedness. We're not all like that, but enough are that all of us get painted with the same brush... because if it bleeds, it leads, and those are the stories that get out into the world via the wires.
Apologies, 727Sky. I'm about to hit the rack, but maybe when I get up, I'll start a "Feud" thread and move these feud posts into it.
If I can figure out how to move individual posts to other threads, that is.
.