LORE FOLK: Double Wide

At the cemetery for the Crab Creek Baptist Church on Jeter Mountain in North Carolina, lies the world's largest granite gravestone, appropriately for Billy & Benny McCrary, the world's largest twins, who weighed 743 and 723 pounds, respectively, with 84 inch waists.


Their gravestone's thirteen feet wide and weighs three tons. You may have heard that it's sinking. Actually it isn't. It's just on a slope. But you can make it look like it's sinking if you tilt your camera, and that's understandably the picture that a lot of folks take.


Yes, pictures of their mini-bikes are etched into their gravestone. No, their bikes are not buried with them. Injuries from a mini-bike stunt gone wrong is what killed Billy and it was his poor mourning brother Benny who oversaw the gravestone's design. The epitaph he gave Billy reads: "A BIG MAN WITH A BIG HEART, LOVED AROUND THE WORLD, WITH A LEGEND AS BIG AS THE MOUNTAINS AROUND HIM." I've been told they were buried in piano boxes. I can't confirm that but share it anyway if only to help keep their legend large.


The story goes that they were discovered by a photographer for Life magazine and used the notoriety of their picture to go into show biz. In their Vegas act, they played trumpets, told jokes, and were accompanied by huge go-go dancers who, at 400 pounds apiece, were still half the boys' size. Their brief turn in tag team wrestling took them to Japan where they appeared as the McGuires due to the difficulty the Japanese had with the word McCrary. But it was their doing daredevil stunts on their mini-bikes, usually while wearing matching cowboy clothes, that became their signature and continued to be their main act until Billy's death.


My wife has family here. When I mention the McCrary twins, it turns out everyone has a story. Her granny says they went to her church and their mother used to give each boy an entire box of a dozen donuts for a snack just to get them through Sunday school. Everyone remembers their mother being small. "Like a little bird," says granny. Her uncle says they went to his barber and they had to be let in the back door and the barber sat them each on a picnic bench. Her cousin says that, after Billy died, Benny ran a pawn shop downtown next to Hot Dog World and every druggie in town knew they could count on Benny to buy whatever useless crap they took him for at least a few bucks. Everyone recalls at least one instance of seeing them ride their mini-bikes through town. Granny still thinks the mother got them fat on purpose to get them in show biz. I decide to believe her -- for the same reason I like to tell people their gravestone is sinking. •

Further reading:

Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar
by Ira Berkow

Because a fat mini-bike rider running a pawn shop reminds me of shopping the stalls at the old Maxwell Street market, the street itself named after one Colonel Maxwell who was known as a "fat man somehow graceful on his horse." I remember asking a vendor about some clothing. What size is that? And being told immediately: "Your size!"


The Quomma's Favorite Fat Songs:

Fat Man (MP3) by Louie & the Fat Men (rip & scan by Kogar)
300 Pounds of Joy (MP3) by Howlin' Wolf

Louie's Fat Man weighs 340. Add Howlin' Wolf and you still only get 640 -- 83 pounds short of the lightest McCrary.