Having said that I never wanted to live in the South, people have been quick to assure me that Virginia isn't really the South. While the people here don't have the heavy, stereotypical Southern accent or drink sweet tea & eat grits, this is still a Southern state. I think this is most evident in the locals' stance on the Civil War. Take this conversation a man from New Jersey had with a native Virginian.
Virginian: You know, the war, it ain't over yet.
New Jersey: Which war would that be?
V: The War of Northern Aggression, of course.
NJ: Really...
V: You know, when General Lee surrendered the Virginian army, he only surrendered the army of Northern Virginia...
It all seems a little surreal to me that there are actually people who are still hung up on the outcome of the Civil War, I'm sorry, I mean the War of Northern Aggression. Who calls it that anyway?
The highways & towns are littered with signs directing all those who pass by to historic events from the Civil War. There are informational signs all over the place as well as signs pointing the way to some house/barn/field where Robert E. Lee/Stonewall Jackson/Turner Ashby fought some battle/led troops/won or lost some major or minor battle. Just the other day, there was an article in the local paper about "endangered battlefields." I guess some local Civil War battle site is in danger because there's talk of widening I-81. People, it's just a field of death. Why is that worth preserving?
The thing that really gets me though, is that all of the cannons - whether at government/civic buildings or at historic monuments - still face north.
Now, why don't you go ahead and tell me again how this isn't really the South...
3 comments:
I do think it's bizarre the way Southerners are still hung up on that. People get raised a certain way, I guess. Those sorts of things are evident everywhere, they just manifest themselves in different ways. I would disagree with you about the battlefields. Yes, it happened a long long time ago, but the idea of preserving such sites is to remind us where we came from - good and bad - and hopefully remind us not to go there again. I find them fascinating.
Amazing how such a huge group of people can be in denial. Hello---you lost the war, read LOST THE WAR. (this applies to American Indians too.....)
Yes...I know this is politically incorrect :)
"People, it's just a field of death..."
That was FUNNY.
my high school boyfriend lived for awhile in rural tennessee, he was maybe in elementary/middle school at the time and had all kinds of stories of 'southerners' and their flags and pride of the south. He hated it there because the kids in school called him the 'Yankee'. Parents definitely pass it down.
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