Reflections

Nuke Gingrich ^ | 9/17/06 | Nuke Gingrich

[grandpa jones]

If you've ever read Willie Morris' My Dog Skip, or seen the movie, then you know a great deal about my own youth, growing up in the Deep South. My hometown was not unlike many small towns across the South, and the similarities between Morris' Yazoo City are many. Other than the technological differences between the 1940's and the 1960's, only the backdrop of the American Civil Rights Struggle, and the War in Viet Nam provide the more significant differences between the two periods.

As I write this, I remember the shoot 'em up games that boys often play: Cowboys and Indians, Army, and especially in the South, we played Civil War. Rebels vs the Yankees. Being a Rebel meant being one of the good guys. It also meant being able to carry the Battle Flag and give a Rebel Yell. Being a Yankee meant, well, it meant that no one wanted to be a Yankee; until that day when a family from Michigan moved in to the neighborhood, the father having taken an administrative job at the paper mill. They had two boys, and we had two new volunteers to be Yankees in our next Civil War game. But, what I most remember about that game of Civil War was that when the two brothers arrived, in full battle regalia, they were carrying a large American Flag,and I wondered, "Why did they bring the Stars and Stripes?" Before that very moment, it had never occurred to me that the war my Southern ancestors had engaged in was actually against the USA.

Now this must seem terribly naive to many of you, and looking back, it does recall a certain