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We have discovered that there is a town in West Virginia named Big Ugly. As proof, I offer: http://www.wvu.edu/administration/photos/image7.htmThe other day, we got into a discussion at the dinner table about headlines for some of the things that might happen there, such as: Big Ugly Girl Wins Local Beauty Pageant; Big Ugly Family Drives Off Bridge; New Big Ugly Chief of Police Hired. I thought it would be fun if you-all could add to the list!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Jim Farquhar came into the sleepy little town of Big Ugly one day in the fall of 1927. He was chased into the late afternoon light of a threatening West Virginian day by the storms which had followed him from the desolate reaches of the ranch country he had long since left behind out west. He was not scared of moving such distances. After all, his folks had come more than three thousand miles from Scotland, carrying the name that meant ‘dear one’ like some talisman promising a better life, given hard work and god’s good blessing. Jim could never figger if the work that killed them by degrees was not deemed hard enough, or whether the run of nature’s blessing that ran from sandbowl winds to lightning strikes to swarms of sky-dead locusts that ate everything in sight was just some strange test of their faith. When he buried his dad on the section that had previously killed his mother as well as his two sisters, he just knew it was time to move on again.
It wasn’t that Big Ugly seemed to particularly call to him. It just kinda settled, more like a comfortable feeling, as he walked along the main street. Jim knew for sure that he’d not be looking to bust another sod or string a fence as long as he lived. As he paused to sit on the steps of the white painted church, he whittled thoughtfully at a nubbin of wood with his granddad’s old knife. And so was born the germ of an idea that grew by steady paces into a boat building business, starting off with little dinghies on the crick and growing into ever more expansive curves of elegant wood destined for further seas.
Jim slowly prospered in the next ten years, and he took on old Joe Fiske to help keep the work moving. When Frances O’Donovan came into his yard as clouds of a different storm gathered in the east, he knew that the next stage of his life was ready to sail. A year later Frances bore their first child, followed by two more in successive years. When Jim got his call-up papers, she swore she’d keep the boatyard going til he got back. It was a promise that came to haunt the young woman.
Nearly two years later, the clutch of kids around her ankles started to bawl in alarm at her tears, the brown telegram trailing at her side. She soon realised grief was a luxury she could not afford. Besides, missing was not dead, right? So she still had a promise to keep.
Many years of hard graft followed, endless cycles of elation and gloom as she fought to keep Jim’s yard first merely alive, then later growing. Succeed she did. There came a proud day in 1957 when the yard’s biggest boat, a sweet-bellied deep keeled ocean-going boat, was being moved carefully down Main Street to reach the deeper waters the other side of the railroad bridge. She would be christened Mabel-May.
Meanwhile, unknown to Frances and her yard crew, a gorilla known with mistaken affection as Lady had just bust out of her cage at the visiting circus. Frightened by a car’s sudden horn, Lady lashed out fatally at a woman in her path, and charged out into Main Street. Confronted by the looming and extraordinary vision of the underside of the boat’s hull, which seemed to float above the street like some vast balloon, the raging beast stopped dead in its tracks, and sat in the dust looking stunned. It was still looking in puzzlement at the boat’s long raking keel when the keepers got close enough with the tranquiliser gun to effect a smooth recapture without further loss of life.
It was this strange coincidence of shocking disturbances in the otherwise quiet community that led the Big Ugly Sentinel-Tribune to run what became their most infamous, if economic, headline:
Big Ugly Mother Farquhar Keel Sold Lady!
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Carpal Tunnel
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oh my, mav. That was truly inspired. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ohmigawd--I started grinning from the first line! It took a lot of willpower for me not to jump to the punch line; I'm so glad I didn't! HA! Thank you, love.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Big Ugly is the place where all they send all the ugly people from The Big Easy to spend their lives in pitiful Mardi-Gras-less exile...rumor has it that all the young men there are starting to look like Prince Charles.
And that's why, to this day, you see nothing but pretty people in Nawlins.
--Poindexter and Peabody; Fractured Fairytale #257
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Carpal Tunnel
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Who's Ferrit? I thought his name was mav...
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That was extremely clever!  Oooo! My 100th post. I'm a 'member' now. Hurray!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oooo! My 100th post. I'm a 'member' now. Hurray!
congrats, giftequus! 2300 to Carpal...
formerly known as etaoin...
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> congrats, giftequus!
2300 to Carpal...
Comisserations, by eq
and after another 2,300 it's all down hill, but welcome to the gang anywayz :)
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Pooh-Bah
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The Big Ugly Senior High boys' basketball team defeated archrivals Sandy Hook last night in Charleston to claim the trophy in the boys' high school basketball tournament. In front of a largely Sandy Hook crowd, the B.U.S.H. Whackers shot an astounding 75% from the floor and outscored the Sandy Hook Worms 79 to 65. Big Ugly junior Junior Johnson was the leading scorer for the Whackers, with 23 points, while Sandy Hook sophomore Earl Scruggs III led the Worms with 18. Despite miserable free-throw shooting and the early foul trouble of junior forward Jimmy "Jim" James, the Whackers were able to silence the crowd with their dead-on outside shooting and maintain a solid lead. Commented a teary-eyed Sandy Hook cheerleader Donna Golightly, "Our boys couldn't seem to score a basket but those Big Ugly balls just kept sailing through the hoop." The score was even more lopsided as the buzzer soudned to end the first half, with the Worms trailing the Whackers 36 to 16. As the Big Ugly boys strutted to their locker room, the Worms crawled off the court with apparent dismay, despite the encouraging cheer from the Sandy Hook supporters "Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook, We Are It! S-H for 'Sandy Hook' I-T for 'It'!"
After the game Big Ugly freshman A.W. Sizemore commented, "When we first saw the crowd we were all intimidated, not only because of its sheer size, but because nearly everyone seemed to have Worms on their backs. But once the game got underway it didn't matter. I didn't get to play much 'cause I'm only a freshman, but I'm awfully proud to have B.U.S.H. on my uniform tonight." Fellow freshman Bobby Roberts agreed: "We're proud to represent our hometown to the folks here in Charleston, and we're looking forward to a real Big Ugly welcome when we get home."
B.U.S.H. coach Dannny Daniels announced to the gathered reporters that his boys "played with a lot of heart, and it was that Big Ugly spirit that led us to victory tonight." Pamela Panders, president of the B.U.S.H. Athletic Supporters Club, presented coach Daniels with the Big Ugly Spirit Stick, which was painted with the school's team colors of purple and lime green. Daniels posed with his stick for photographers and announced that he was looking forward to brandishing the Big Ugly Stick all over B.U.S.H. on Monday. As unhappy Sandy Hook fans filed out of the arena, Big Ugly boys and girls gathered at center court to sing the B.U.S.H. school song, "Our Big Ugly Alma Mater."
This year marks Big Ugly's first state championship since 1923 when Big Ugly senior Davey "Dave" Davidson led the Whackers to a 91-88 victory over the then-undefeated Minorsville Miners.
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Carpal Tunnel
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LOL!
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shouldn't it be the B.U.S.H. Athletic Supporters Squad?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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'way to go, Alex! I loved the idea of the cheerleaders all yelling "We are shit", to say nothing of your image of the stick... :)
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