Keller @ Large: Wedding Ends In Handcuffs, Criminal Charges
BOSTON (CBS) - It's been nearly 200 years since the great British poet Lord Byron coined the phrase: "Truth is… stranger than fiction," and Lord knows it still rings true.
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The latest proof – a true story, according to the police report, out of Danvers, where a local function hall played host last weekend to a wedding that apparently wound up looking more like an Ultimate Fighting Challenge match gone off the rails.
According to the Salem News, just after midnight last Sunday Danvers police responded to a report of a "groom out of control," and it wasn't some Suffolk Downs worker feeling his oats.
Quoting from the newspaper:
"It all started when the groom's brothers tried to buy drinks at the bar and were refused. The groom was 'irate' and began yelling at an employee, according to" the police report.
"When a member of the bride's family asked him to calm down, he grew more enraged, punching a wall and tearing the coat room apart.... The bride's brother tried to intervene and wound up being punched. As the groom and his new brother-in-law wrestled on the floor, the groom's mother…went after the bride's mom."
What was in that punch bowl?
All kidding aside, this story may serve as a reminder of what happens when two depressingly common character traits – inability to control your temper and your drinking – merge and erupt.
If you've ever spent some time surfing YouTube, perhaps you've sampled a few of the many videos of kids and adults making complete fools of themselves with drinking and fighting; you're lucky if you can attend a major sports event without seeing the same thing.
I hope that family can overcome the fallout from their ruined wedding.
Then again, for too many of us it seems, involvement in that sort of debacle is just one pop too many away.
As Mark Twain once wrote, paraphrasing Lord Byron: "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."
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