Ha which this reminds me of a story my dad told us when we asked if there was a shortcut through where we were going in the Ozarks. It was a time before phones.
“Peopleproblems, you don’t take shortcuts around here. You stick to the main roads, follow the signs, and make darn sure you have a map. When I was in college, engaged to your mom, we were on our way back from doxable university and we decided to do that, cause my friend (has a name), said he knew of one. We went with it - we came up to a stop sign, and this old beat up truck pulled up next to us. A short ugly looking thin as bones guy with a beard and no hair, with his unfortunately worse looking daughter. He gets out of the truck after he places his shot gun on the dashboard drunkenly steps on over to us and says ‘One o’ yee need to murry my daughter. She ain’t purty but she cook and clean real good. I don care wheech one o’ y’all does, but we got e’rything ready. Jus follow us on down ‘ere.’ My friend says something stupid, I can’t remember what, but his response was what I won’t forget: ‘I ain’t given yee a choice.’ As he heads back to the truck my friend just says ‘Gun it!’ and the little Gremlin I was in worked the hardest it ever had. Once we got back on the highway there was a mix of laughing and crying as we were facing a real shotgun wedding.”
We were young at the time, so he left the sad part out. Around there incest/rape was a known thing, and she had probably gotten pregnant. He was likely trying to find someone to marry her so he didn’t get the blame, she didn’t get the problems associated with being a single pregnant mother in hillbilly land, and the whole problem is solved. And he’d do it at gun point if he had to.
Ha which this reminds me of a story my dad told us when we asked if there was a shortcut through where we were going in the Ozarks. It was a time before phones.
“Peopleproblems, you don’t take shortcuts around here. You stick to the main roads, follow the signs, and make darn sure you have a map. When I was in college, engaged to your mom, we were on our way back from doxable university and we decided to do that, cause my friend (has a name), said he knew of one. We went with it - we came up to a stop sign, and this old beat up truck pulled up next to us. A short ugly looking thin as bones guy with a beard and no hair, with his unfortunately worse looking daughter. He gets out of the truck after he places his shot gun on the dashboard drunkenly steps on over to us and says ‘One o’ yee need to murry my daughter. She ain’t purty but she cook and clean real good. I don care wheech one o’ y’all does, but we got e’rything ready. Jus follow us on down ‘ere.’ My friend says something stupid, I can’t remember what, but his response was what I won’t forget: ‘I ain’t given yee a choice.’ As he heads back to the truck my friend just says ‘Gun it!’ and the little Gremlin I was in worked the hardest it ever had. Once we got back on the highway there was a mix of laughing and crying as we were facing a real shotgun wedding.”
We were young at the time, so he left the sad part out. Around there incest/rape was a known thing, and she had probably gotten pregnant. He was likely trying to find someone to marry her so he didn’t get the blame, she didn’t get the problems associated with being a single pregnant mother in hillbilly land, and the whole problem is solved. And he’d do it at gun point if he had to.