Four men starved to death at a Mountain View, Georgia church in a bizarre series of events during a potluck dinner.
The men, all deacons at the Rough and Ready Baptist Church in Mountain View, a small community just south of Atlanta, apparently had a long standing feud over “potluck protocol” when none would approach the buffet table first.
According to R&RBC pastor Samuel Lovett, “Someone said, “Ladies first”, and slowly but eventually, the women folk stopped talking long enough to make it to the plastic ware, and began filling their plates with fried chicken and potato salad. That alone took forty-five minutes.”
“Next thing I knew all four men began gesturing toward the food, and looked at each other offering, “After you”, “No, after you”, and “I insist”. This went on for the longest time.”
“Nobody wanted to go first”, he continued. “It was a freakish standoff of some sort of gentleman’s one-up-man-ship.”
Despite desperate pleas from their wives to relent, each stubbornly held his ground. The stalemate went on well into the evening, and after several hours, one by one, as Lovett described, “They began dropping like flies. Apparently they would rather starve than be rude.”
And they did.
Clayton County coroner Zeb Tuckett ruled the men had indeed died of acute starvation and exhaustion from extreme southern hospitality.
After the chairs and tables had been stacked, and families consoled, one church member was seen filling a small Styrofoam bowl with what was left of the peach cobbler. He could be heard muttering under his breath,“The last shall be first”.