Are you a veteran?

[tomf]

[Charlie MV]

Don't ask me, I wont tell.

[DoubleDogFarm]

[tedln]

Cuz,

I haven't replied to your post because I am shocked! Totally shocked! I thought Arkansas was the state where guys attended family reunions looking for girls. uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh.

Cuz Ted.

[DoubleDogFarm]

I thought Arkansas was the state where guys attended family reunions looking for girls

That's wrong in so many ways!

[Charlie MV]

You guys think that's wrong? Let me tell you about South Carolina.

Arkansas thanks god for us in nearly all categories.

[tedln]

Hey cuz! which state was Jerry lee Lewis from. He married his fifteen year old cuz. Was it Louisiana? Sorry Gumbo. I wonder if his cuz wanted to sit in his lap to celebate?

cuz Ted

[Canadian Farmer Guy]

I'm never leaving Canada again.
You Yanks are crazy.

CFG

[DoubleDogFarm]

This is why I live on an Island. You can only get here by ferry.

No No, lets call it a boat.

It keeps out some of the riff-raff

Eric

[Charlie MV]

Yanks? Obviously CFG has no clue what SC, Arkansas. Texas, Alabama and Georgia are.

Cousin Ted, Louisiana is an entirely different planet. We all thank gawd for them.


Double Dog, is that the island where the crazy people burned Nicolas Cage in the wicker basket?

[DoubleDogFarm]

Double Dog, is that the island where the crazy people burned Nicolas Cage in the wicker basket?

Shhhhh!

[Canadian Farmer Guy]

As far as I know, "Yank" refers to any American
Is there a different meaning down south?

CFG

[tedln]

Well, I kinda prefer yank. I've been called cracker and gringo, but they are not as endearing as yank. I never took offense to anything I was called so long as I was called in time for lunch.

Ted

[Canadian Farmer Guy]

I never took offense to anything I was called so long as I was called in time for lunch.

Amen to that!

CFG

[thanrose]

As far as I know, "Yank" refers to any American
Is there a different meaning down south?

CFG

Aside from meaning that you are Canadian? hehe.

Yeah. When I was living in Boston and in Maine (southern coast), yankee generally referred to New Englanders with a pedigree going back to the Mayflower if we used the term at all. It also was an adjective to describe food or craft of longstanding tradition in that region.

Elsewhere, through much of the US, yankee will mean a thing or a person from a northern state in the US, one that was on the northern side in the Civil War. Very loosely applied, though. I was born below the Mason-Dixon line (Maryland's northern border pretty much) by a hair, and grew up below it, so I could sometimes claim southern heritage with someone who was poor in geography and history. Jersey girl, Atlantic City and south... Definitely yankee.

Now I live below the Deep South. I'm so far south that I'm north again... Not really, but I can't claim to be a Southerner with a capital S because I'm a yankee from Florida. Has nothing to do with my place of birth, but more the region I live in and the customs I have.

The fellas from South Carolina, Arkansas, Texas and wherever else we might consider Deep South will very definitely view Yankee as an epithet for northern USians, usually preceded by Damn. Of course, Texans are notoriously independent and may resist being thought of as Deep South. At least Gumbo knows his Louisiana wore gray in the Civil War.

You know how Canadians have little inside jokes about the Territories or Newfies or people from Ottawa? Or if you run into a really bad driver, you think, "Must be from Toronto!" That's what we do. I'm sure Charlie has some funny thoughts on the difference between South Carolina and North Carolina and Ted could tell you some Okie stories.

Come to think of it, depending on where in Canada you are from, you probably condemn poor drivers as being from Detroit.

When I lived in Maine, people there thought Boston was marginally the Deep South.

[Charlie MV]

South and North Carolina are different planets. NC is the second largest banking hub in the country, has top flight universities is home to 25 Fortune 500 companies and Charlotte alone has 350 Fortune 500 company locations within it's county.

I moved to SC 3 years ago from Charlotte [NC]. I have strong family roots here and spend the 80s here. SC has zero Fortune 500 company home offices and just a few with locations within the state. Residents here still discuss secession as well as the placement of the Confederate flag on the statehouse grounds. It is backward to the point of being nearly a third world country.

Take a look at commentary in the State Newspaper if you want to check behind what I say. We moved here to take care of an ailing parent. We lost nearly all insurance benefits as a result. I'd be happy to be a yank but I'm not. I just hope I can get out of this place before the rest of the country builds a fence around it.

[tedln]

We live near a little town in North Texas called Gainesville. There is a monument on the court house square where twenty two possible union sympathizers were hung during the civil war. One of the victims was originally found not guilty of being a sympathizer and was released. The jury later changed its mind and the Sheriff went to the guys farm and arrested him again and hung him just in case he really was a union sympathizer. The jury must have been entirely female cause they couldn't seem to make up their minds. (Please don't throw rotten tomatoes at me ladies)

Ted[

[tedln]

Sorry, I double posted

[thanrose]

Better safe than Union, I guess.

Thirty years of my life has been spent living on top of or next door to one of two acknowledged stops on the Underground Railroad. Of course, one was a rumrunner's tunnel used in colonial days, too. Within spitting distance of Paul Revere's Old North Church. "One if by land..."

Wars and the myriad stories from them really stay with us, in our memories, in our actions, and sometimes as a subtext to all else that goes on around us.

I can show you where Crispus Attucks fell in 1770, the first to die in the Boston Massacre. I can show you the faded hand painted billboard in a lazy Florida cowtown, with the names of all the neighborhood sons that died in VietNam scribed there until they ran out of room. When you realize the demographics of that neighborhood, see that it is reclaimed swampland with industrial wastes bisected by a railroad, and finally realize that a hugely disproportionate number of the poulation died on foreign soil you start to wonder, just why is that?

So why is anyone in any war? There is no glib answer, and you can't even start looking at a grassroots level for a macro answer. Why did so many young men from that tiny depressed and repressed area die? Still not one answer. Many reasons, and no guarantee that any are good. Unlike Crispus Attucks' death, there is no way to turn it into a matter of pride.

What we can do is remember our soldiers, for whatever cause, remember the sacrifices they made, and pay attention to the patterns that emerge. No one should lose as many sons as old Mrs Sullivan did in 1942. Of course, even at that time the Navy discouraged siblings serving together, but the Sullivans requested that they serve on the same ship. So many WWII losses, even on that ill-fated USS Juneau, but Mrs Sullivan's five fold loss moved a war-weary nation.

I'm not sure what the Armed Forces does when masses of unrelated people from a single area serve. That's probably more on the local churches, community politicians, and activists to step in and redirect. I do know that this small area's churches still mention all those young men on days like Veteran's Day, Memorial Day and others.

It's not much of an epitaph, it's not a legacy of particular pride, but it is important to remember.

Mods, if you need to delete this, I'm fine with that. I'm actually pretty apolitical.

[tedln]

I can't imagine anyone wanting to delete all or part of your post thanrose.

Excellent content and well stated.

I make a lot of statements and ask a lot of questions fully aware that many people have strong beliefs about the subjects. I really am interested in how people feel about things. I have my own feelings about the subjects, but I never think anyone who may disagree with me is wrong. My beliefs don't make me right, just interested.

Ted