Less than 12 hours after watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, I ran into our hometown version of gypsies while walking into a pizza buffet. Unlike the Irish Travellers, polygamists don’t wear make-up, spray tan, have platinum blonde hair or wear tight fitting and ‘revealing’ clothing. They do, however, have big hair, the men occasionally don a mullet, and they aren’t opposed to marrying withing the family. Which reminds me of a needle point pillow I saw once when meeting a client at his house. The pillow – complete with flowers and birds – read, “A family that preys together stays together.” As Church Lady would say, “Well ain’t that special.”
A few hours later, Miss Information and I were touring another part of town that, like Beaver, has a great name. Virgin. As we were driving around town taking pictures, Miss Information noticed a sign that was pleasing to her, “Virgin Canal,” she giggled. A few minutes later we saw another sign, and yet another. We even found a small town with a Virgin Jail, Hotel and Undertaker. We were taking one snapshot after the other.
Then, before you know it, we were out of Virgin. “I can’t believe we just drove through Virgin,” I told Miss Information and asked, “How can one top that?”
By driving on to the next town, that’s how. Manderfield. If you pronounce it the way the folks in ‘these parts’ do, you top, if not measure up, to Virgin.
With each new town or nuance, the jokes were rolling. “You know,” I told Miss Information, “You can take the girl out of Virgin and, as it turns out, you can also take the virgin out of the girl. Who knew?” “Manderfield, that’s who,” Miss Information quipped.