Marietta: The Big Chick-Chick

Jaylan Brown and I do not have a lot in common.  He is a very talented professional basketball player, which means he is a lot younger, taller, and richer than I am

However, we are both graduates of Wheeler High School, blessed be thy name.

There is something else.

Earlier this year, somebody made a video about Mr. Brown, and it exposed something else we have in common.

We both survived the mean streets of Marietta, Georgia.

The video's narrator said this:  “Jaylen Brown grew up in Marietta, Georgia, considered one of the most dangerous and unsafe cities in the world. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Marietta is one in 28, and the area has a crime rate that is higher than 77% of the state’s  cities and towns of all sizes.”

Marietta, aka "The Big Chick-Chick", aka "The M", aka "Mayberryetta" aka "Mayretta", aka "Mare-etter,"  is a hard, bitter place.

It is a place where the workers at Chick-fil-A never say, "My pleasure."

It is a place where Burger King doesn't care if you want it your way because you will get it the king's way and you will like it.

It is a place where mothers took their young impressionable sons to witness a special appearance of Jayne Mansfield (who Jack Parr once introduced as "Now, here they are, Jayne Mansfield") at the Grand Opening of a Thrift City.  One mother (mine) reported that she was drunk. Jayne Mansfield, not my mom.

Yes, I am OG (Old Guy) Mariettan.  Back in "the day", Marietta would have young boys riding on bicycles with banana seats in tenement housing known as "Beverly Hills," popping wheelies and seeing who could spit the furthest.

Teenagers would join gangs called "youth groups"  that met in local churches, and they would go to church on Sunday morning and Sunday evening.  Some of these youth groups had "youth choirs" and would break out into song, sometimes on key.

Marietta is located in Cobb County, the only county in Georgia named after a salad. Other towns in Cobb County are Smyrna (pronounced "Smir-nah"), Kennesaw (pronounced "Kenny-saw"), Mableton (pronounced "MaybaTON"), and Acworth (pronounced "Ack-wert").

On top of the video comes an article written by Rodney Ho of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Brett Butler, not the baseball player.

Brett Butler, not the baseball player, is a comedian that I went to high school with, although that is a misnomer.  We went to the same school, but were only in the same building together for one year- my seventh and her ninth-grade year.  It gets a little complicated, but her class went to school in the morning while mine went to school in the afternoon in a glorious experiment called "split sessions".

Brett somehow became a hilarious stand-up comedian and eventually had her own situation comedy called "Grace Under Fire".  I'm sure the TV people saw her as a pretty Chicken-fried Roseanne.

To make a long story short, Brett has hit hard times, and friends have started a GoFundMe page to help raise $15K to help her avoid eviction.

What caught my eye was Ho quoted from a 2003 interview with Butler in which she said,  “Marietta reaped none of the cultural benefits of Atlanta. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t wait to leave.”

Two things:  1) I'm sorry Marietta didn't live up to Brett's high cultural standards, and 2)  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution loves to poop on Marietta, particularly after the Braves moved to Cumberland Mall.

I wish Brett Butler (not the baseball player) the best.  I hope she makes a comeback and reconsiders her hometown.

Despite all of this negative publicity about Marietta, I'm happy to say people are still moving here.  We have several Starbucks, The West Cobb Diner, and three Chick-fil-A restaurants within a three-mile radius of my house.

On top of that, we haven't seen Elvis in a year or two.