...during re-construction the South developed a rather harsh disliike for Carpetbaggers. All the statues and carvings are a way of giving them the "finger". I do not know it to be a fact but I am told that every statue with a horse on it the horses ass is pointed toward the North. The intent is obvious to the casual observer.
...when they started naming military bases after Southern Generals I figured that the civil war was over, all was forgiven and we were welcome back. All one family again. I was at least partially wrong.
...I remembered the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the March from Selma. I was thinking it was something that happened in the 20's or 30's but it happened in 1965. I had been in the Marines two years and in Vietnam. For the life of me I could not understand why all the blacks were always in a bad mood. Selma was just a small town and ya could find problems in small towns anywhere.
...when I got out of the military 1967 there were still "white and colored" water fountains everywhere. I was in a restaurant when some black folks came in and were refused service. People were giving em a hard time. I got up and went over and sat at the counter with them. Couldn't figure out what all they were fussing about. The color of ya skin isn't contagious.
...back to 1966 I was still in the Marines and was stationed at Camp LeJeund North Carolina. I had a car and any week end I was off I would swoop down to Atlanta where the future Mz ribit lived. There was a place called "Swoop Circle" and ya would put a sign in ya car window about where ya was going and for five bucks each way folks would ride with ya. It paid for the gas. One of my swoops there was a black guy who rode with us. We rode from Jacksonville N.C. to some little place in South Carolina. Stopped at a restaurant to get a quick bite. Four of us walked in and a deadly quiet fell over the place. Folks were staring at us. We went up and sat down at the counter. The waitress came up and said that she would be glad to serve the white guys but that they didn't serve "N" there. I didn't believe it. I thought all that crap had gone away. "He ain't no "N" lady, he's a Marine". I said. Didn't seem to make any difference to her.
...they told us that he could eat but that he would have to go back to the kitchen where the "help" was. I was about to tell them that we would just go somewhere else and the black guy said it was alright he would go eat in the kitchen. I was pissed but if it was ok with him it was ok with me. Afterwards when we were back on the road he told us that "the help" had fed him really well. A lot better than us and that he was not charged anything. Still, I was pissed. Ya got a right to like or dislike anybody ya want to and ya can do it for any reason or no reason at all. What ya don't have the right to do is abuse somebody just cause you don't like them.
...it's always something ya know.
Liberals are like a "Slinky". Totally useless, but somehow ya can't help but smile when you see one tumble down a flight of stairs!
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