My Fellow McClintocks,
Today is a sad day. I regret to inform you our beloved family newsletter, “The Fightin’ McClintock,” will cease publication, indefinitely. Too few of us remain to justify the time commitment of authorship, design and distribution, especially when I’ve seen wadded pieces of my newsletter suspiciously close to some of your toilets. Not naming any names, Cousin Wayne. And so with a heavy heart I, Mary Douglas McClintock, hereby vacate my post as Newsletter General.
Rather than lament the present, however, we should use this final edition to celebrate the past.
Over two hundred years ago our lauded progenitor, Jebediah McClintock, settled these Tennessee hills we call home. Though he died shortly after – bushwacked in an unfair fight against that historically overrated ass, Daniel Boone – Jeb lived long enough to sire eleven children. His youngest, Mary Lynn, founded our sacred family text. After she lost six brothers in a tragic whorehouse brawl – during which the Boones blatantly cheated – Mary Lynn realized the importance of celebrating each McClintock while they were still alive.
“The Fightin’ McClintock” was born.
For two centuries the F. M. has chronicled our family exploits, keeping us all connected and filling our hearts with pride. Our great nation has changed so much, but we McClintocks have stayed the same, steadily carving our legend upon the bedrock of these Appalachian hills. What two words have we etched upon the stone?
We fight.
Nathaniel McClintock II, oldest grandson of Mary Lynn, served with (near) distinction as an (almost) decorated Confederate officer in 1861. Had he not received a fatal stab wound just moments before the Civil War’s opening battle at Manassus, he would have no doubt distinguished himself on the field. The brigand responsible, who employed a cowardly, sneak counterattack with Nathaniel’s own disarmed knife, was never brought to justice.
Nathaniel’s five brothers boldly left their posts in the Tennessee 13th to avenge their brother’s murder, but fate, regrettably, does occasionally side with cowards. Rather than face them in a fair fight, Lieutenant Vernon Boone had those brave McClintocks arrested for desertion and hanged.
Theirs would not be the last McClintock blood to fertilize the soil of liberty. At the outbreak of the Great War no less than forty-nine McClintocks joined the army, itching to cross the Atlantic and slap Kaiser Wilhelm across his silly mustache. If they hadn’t been slaughtered to a man during an innocent midnight squirrel-hunting trip to the Boone family ranch prior to joining the fight, those McClintocks would have had a mighty impact on the war.
Still, our family continued to answer the call. After America was left reeling from the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor, thirty-seven McClintock boys enlisted to fight the Nazis. Adolf got off easy, though. Just before those boys shipped off to England some Boones insulted the McClintock women – comparing our rears to the stern end of a steamboat, which, while accurate, is still disrespectful to say – resulting in a dust-up that left all those courageous McClintocks dead. The Boones, who cheated shamelessly in that fight, later claimed we McClintocks started it, lying through their teeth about somebody filling their grandmama’s bloomers with poison ivy. It wasn’t true, but even if it was, that’s just funny.
Nothing could contain our fighting spirit. McClintocks signed up for every major war in our country’s history, prepared to uphold the cause of freedom in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Were it not for the Boone family’s constant instigation and unwillingness to fight fair, all those McClintocks would have gone to war and come home heroes.
Let’s not forget the McClintock women either. It was up to us, after all, to replenish the ever diminishing supply of fightin’ McClintock men. For generations we have faithfully given birth every nine-and-a-half months, which should not even biologically be possible, stopping only when menopause closed it down for good. This, of course, led to a great imbalance of the sexes, with thirty-five McClintock women for every McClintock man by 1959. After the civil rights movement of the 1960s we women began to fight alongside our men, evening things out as we fell in great numbers to the underhanded fighting tactics of the Boone women.
Now, in the opening decades of the twenty-first century, we must look to the future. There may only be nine of us left, but not only is that enough for a softball team (Go McClin-Tigers!), it’s enough to fight Boones. Next week we’ll confront them at their family reunion in the east-side Walmart parking lot, settling once and for all who rules these hills.
Maybe we are grossly outnumbered, and maybe we’ve all lost limbs and major organs to the innumerable Boone counterattacks we’ve faced, but still, we will fight. That’s what McClintocks do.
We will stand before the unsold John Deere mowers like the Spartan three hundred at Thermopylae, shoulder to shoulder against the advancing Boone hordes. Did every one of those three hundred die horrifically? I suppose. Will we? Hell no. We will claim victory upon the asphalt of battle, no question.
We just have to trust the McClintock instincts that have guided our proud family to where it is today. Don’t think – attack. And perhaps one day, after several years of hard breeding, our treasured family newsletter, “The Fightin’ McClintock,” can rise again.
Keep Fightin’,
Mary Douglas McClintock