greatrandini said:
I thought it was a little funny! Of course the Civil war is over......isn't it?
Well, maybe officially it's over. At least Blue and Grey aren't actively shooting minie balls at each other. My paternal grandfather was born in Arkansas during the last year of the "War of Yankee Aggression" and grew up in North Louisiana during the reconstruction era. During my childhood in those North Louisiana Piney Woods (late '40s, early '50's) I recall my father cautioning me about trusting "yankees". I don't know if he was serious or not, but I suspect that he was. He opined that he didn't like yankees because "They even eat cats". Incidentally, to him, a yankee was just about anybody who came from anywhere north of about Little Rock, Ark.
The loss of that war, but more especially the "reconstruction era" that followed, had an unimaginable impact on the attitudes and inner feelings of the Southerner. It was evident in my grade school and high school education. The years between Ft. Sumter and Appomattox were passed over with little more than a reference to an "unpleasantness" that occurred in the early 1860's, but Reconstruction was covered in detail. I didn't even hear about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address until after I'd graduated from high school, but I was made well aware of the offenses committed by the "Scalawags" and "Carpet Baggers" during Reconstruction.
That attitude still shows up today in comments such as those of "JohnDeereFarmer" which are offered in a humorous vein but often have a deeper, hidden, and much more serious meaning.
"Hang on to your Confederate money, boys! The South's gonna rise again!"
