You think Southerners are good at football, cooking, eating and lying? Try revenge. We excel at this trait. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is something we seem to have a penchant for, no matter that the Good Book is against such retribution. Maybe “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayth the Lord,” but Southerners want to help Him out.
This blog is not long enough to contain all the ugly Southern Revenge stories I’ve seen and heard and read. Edgar Allan Poe was a Southerner, remember?
Southern politicians have made an art of revenge. Southerners make good soldiers, coaches and writers because of this trait. When you see a sweet Southern grandmother, just remember, she keeps her revenge right below that gentle drawl and she can whip it out and snap a pop-knot upside your head faster than Barney can load his bullet.
Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but in the South, it don’t get cold that often, so we serve it up hot with a side order of chicken fried pickles. The revenge buffet serves payback pie, gittin’ yers salad, retribution beef, what goes around casserole, just desserts, karma-candied yams and sweet revenge, 24-7.
Scientists in England did a study last year and determined that men are more apt to exact revenge for a perceived slight than women.
Note to guys: Don’t believe this.
Women are particularly good at extracting their pound of flesh. Southern women have Ph.D’s. Hell, indeed, hath no fury like a woman scorned. A Southern woman scorned? Go North, young man. And you may not even know what scorns her, either. However, once she gets all scorned up, don’t close your eyes or turn your back.
Case in point: Lorena Bobbit. Case in point: The wife who caught he husband cheating and super-glued little Elvis to his stomach while he slept. Case in point: The old boy’s bass-boat-off-the-overpass trick.
Bass boats seem to be particularly good targets for revengeful Southern women. Lesson: If you want to cheat, sell your bass boat first. And sleep on your stomach. Better Lesson: Don’t cheat on a Southern woman. Better advice you will never get, guaranteed.
As a culture, Southerners honed their vengeful skills in the aftermath of the Civil War. Burnings and terror and the Klan are all sick Southern forms of revenge. No matter what color, everybody got in on a little revenge in some way.
The region felt relegated to second-class citizen status after Appomattox, at least until we discovered competition. Southerners got revenge by trying to win at several chosen activities: College football, NASCAR, cooking, strokes and heart attacks. In the last two, Southerners have no equal. The ultimate Southern revenge, however, may be the nationwide success of Wal-Mart.
All of that said, not all Southern Revenge is bad. Blues, jazz and rock and roll all started in the South and all have some founding in revengeful motive whether sorrowful or belligerent. Southern barbecue has a little revenge in its history — well, if you’re a pig. You see, pigs are considered one of the smarter animals on earth next to us. Southerners found a way to one-up their smart-oinked neighbors: We eat them. Keep that in mind if you cross a hungry Southerner.
The Allman Brothers Band did an album called Southern Revenge live at the Fillmore East on June 26, 1971, in NYC. On that album you get Statesboro Blues, One Way Out, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Whipping Post, You Don’t Love Me / Soul Serenade. Revenge is sweet and bitter, all at the same time because Duane Allman was killed almost four months later to the day.
Southern women don’t have a lock on revenge. Southern men can dish out their share (as Neil Young wailed). Here’s one from this past year. In Richmond Va., a disgruntled ex-boyfriend wanted revenge so bad against his former girlfriend, he distributed (on the windshield of parked cars in shoppin centers) DVDs of his ex-girlfriend having sex with him. That’s sketch. That’s revenge. That got him put in jail, which is, I reckon, revenge in itself.
Revenge is part of the Southern historical fabric. After all, technically, Montezuma was a Southerner and his name has become more than synonymous with the “R” word.