Black Belt Native Infiltrates Dangerous Closed Society

Architecture typical of Bibb County's portable, ramshackle style

WEST BLOCKTON, AL—After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in public health, Greensboro debutante and Delta Delta Delta sorority president Greer Miller Thornton, Millie to her friends, accepted a career that put her further a field of the Black Belt than she expected. Thornton spent 18 months residing in the remote hills of the north Bibb County community of West Blocton. Although it was a change of pace from the sorority house, her 1998 model double wide trailer, the only available residence, has long been considered the most valuable house in the area, owing to posh features such a buried septic tank and above ground pool. The house also came with a trampoline, satellite dish, and four wheeler, immediately elevating the status of this cultured outsider.

During her time in Bibb County, Thornton was charged with collecting population demographic data, since US census bureau officials ardently refused to enter the area after the 1978 shooting of a census worker who inadvertently stumbled upon Dwight Blackwell’s marijuana patch and cock fighting arena. Thornton was unknowingly recognized by a community of males suspicious of outsiders on the basis of her 2004 appearance in the “Hot College Co-eds on Spring Break XIV” installment of the Girls Gone Wild video series. Says Maxine Williams, owner of the profitable local business Maxine’s Tan Stand,Video Rodeo, Dog Grooming and Small Engine Repair, “That’s the most popular video we got here. It even out-rented ‘Wrestlemania XLIV’, and that’s the one where Vince McMahon hit Triple H acrost the face with a chair for looking down his girlfriend’s shirt.”

Thornton’s unprecedented access to this insular community has allowed her to pull back the vinyl siding curtain and collect some surprising statistics concerning mortality rates. Based on her research, while the average life expectancy for women is near the national average at 78.4 years, males have a much shorter life expectancy, of roughly 44.8 years. What may be even more surprising are the leading causes of death for Bibb County males, which differ substantially from the national leaders of heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Says Thornton, “They simply don’t live long enough to develop these common diseases, so their effects are statistically insignificant.” Common causes of death for Bibb County males include: (1) stabbing, (2) pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment explosions, (3) all-terrain vehicle accidents, (4) rope swing failure, (5) drowning/alcohol poisoning, and (6) rabies. While women do live longer than men, Thornton has noted extremely high rates of (1) craniofacial fractures, (2) scalp trauma, (3) nail bed infections, and (4) dental attrition. Concerning her results, Thornton says, “These numbers raise disturbing questions about life for the residents of northern Bibb County. The only closely comparable death rates and causes of trauma are found in populations of seventeenth century Ukranian peasants.”

After a difficult 18 months of working, Thornton plans to marry her college sweetheart, Chapman Spencer, and move to Mountain Brook. She is not, however, abandoning the community of West Blocton. She is currently engrossed in planning a benefit for her new charity, Pour Out Our Reserves, Daughters of United Mountain Brook. Charity funds will be used to purchase replacement hair extensions for Bibb County women wounded in drunken honky-tonk and gas station parking lot brawls.