I have been "away" with no lap top.see you next week
Pyrate


Two Flags

The light was an old light; golden in tinsel chandeliers up above  harbor
Hotel  reception room with  red carpets washed thin and stained with a
generation of Budwiser and a millennium of hot Southern nights.
A dirty  mirrored  Loretta Young stairway  tumbles into  the room  suggesting
that once soriety queens in buffonts danced to Elvis and Gladys Knight" here.

Now the same colored waiters in white service coats  hustle drinks to old
retired warriors;ribboned and corpulent perhaps wishing they could hear the
Soul music of happier  times once more as they make small talk with  hawk
nosed  accountants and car salesmen with buckled cell phones who snap their
gum and grin widely.
.Like  dusky shadows the waiters  move  among the crowd with iced burbons on
silver trays their  tight collars making  beads of sweat  at their foreheads

A bevy of  ill kept red necks; and good ol boys  lounged guard at the door;
Their Sunday  clothes and bad haircutsd are  out of date ;
 With surly stares and white socks  they keep all but the initiated and
invited at bay like   curs over a  food  bowl.
I took a long tug on my bourbon and waited ; my boys were not with me .
I knew nobody in this room except one vague acquaintance and he wasn't
showing; well not yet anyway.

Suddenly;there was  a call to attention; and old and young rose about a
hundred in alll.

The standard bearers brought in two falgs.in ceremony and stood to face the
room
. First; the American flag and  the pledge of allegiance; with hand over
heart was recited  with reverend cadence  like  the  fervent allegiance of
former and would be patriots.

Then as if I was in a a Leni Risenstall (sp) movie  ; in quick succession
Next followed  the furl of the  Confederate flag .....and a  spell bound
pledge... to the honor of the Confederacy with equal patriotism..
..This is riveting  performance is   hauntingly  demonstrated with
outstretched arm  rigid with the palm lifted open.... to heaven.
  .
It was moving, powerful; and scary all at once.
I can see how small egos can get caught up and feel empowered by such
ceremony.
Blood oaths of fealty;and supposed  inner knowledge of sacred inheritance of
country and divine right by race can  rule mens hearts just as much now as it
did in Attila the Huns day.
All I need now is for the lights to go off and the sheets  parade in with
their  torches
and Im outta here .
It wasn't so ; but  the  drama continued

After the pledges; the flags were retired next to the Baptist Christian
flag;(which is the Protestant flag ) This gets me nervous ; but to many its
as natural as apple pie.
 I was then half expecting a militant recital of the Nicene creed; but
pleasantly  that didn't happen either

This  is  it; I am  in the holly of hollies. The meeting of the sons of the
Confederacy
in a creaking old Hotel out of the Southern 60's.
I took another  long tug  on my fresh bourbon and reflected on how in the
heck did I get here .

Ive been working graves and have uncovered a few corpses; one with a doubloon
in its mouth  another wearing a chasity belt.
Last week I uncovered a rib cage; thigh bone  and a ten Franc piece of the
French revolution.The coin now graces my neck as a lucky charm
but tonight Im not so sure.

The graves I was working lie near Confederate rest . Long white rows of
marble slab  in the hundreds just outside Mobile.
It was  on  the birthday of Robert E. Lee. and ran into another stone mason
who works the confederate  (and union) graves.
 A great big ; shirt off your back ;good ol boy stonemason with a thick
drawl,
 who loves to hunt an fish ; cut stone and talk story "bout da wa"
and by the way could I come over and meet their group Mon /night.
I said yes as I was  listening to him recite the exploits of the 5 generals
of the confederacy who are buried here.

Now for those of us who grew up with pictures of Lee and Washington on the
school room wall instead of Linclon
Robert E Lee Day is now celebrated as
Dr.Martin Luther  King  day ;
King whose real  birthday is anther month;is by no means an "accident" ;  by
being put into    Lees birthday
thus making it ... a "federal holiday"
This political gerrymander is like letting the Protestants of Northern
Ireland march  the Orange in catholic neighborhoods. It does nothing to help
"race " in this country
Another screw up to pit one group aginst anoter

To the Sons ; whose kin lie in neat white rows by the hundreds; and most
never owned slaves ; bristle of any affront to their gallant memory or to
their  flag..The stars and bars
 .
I hate these food fights ; In the end diversity will win ; but I  try and
stay clear of them as nobody is alive from these days to defend themselves.
But there is power in Death; just ask the groups who want reparations for
slavery; or go to  Culloden in Morray Scotland where the Scots lie in Clan
mounds by the hundreds under their own flag;; their children came to the
American Antebellum South
 ..as for  me ; keep the bloody  flag ; I like the history

Meanwhile; back at ground zero
I was munching on some stale M&M's  from a paper doily and finding courage in
the bourbon when suddenly I  was introduced to the Sons ; as " a friend of
ours"  ( Haven't I heard that before...God father?)
 My stonemason friend welcomed me to the dias where I momentarily nervously
stared at the crowd trying to find words before someone in the crowd could
throw a rope  over a beam .
 Fearing the worst;  I then gave  a historical narrative how the southern
side of my family fought and died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and that I was
also directly related to General Mcellan; the General of the Union Army
before Grant and a political opponent of Linclon.
I shared some personal family stories from that period, whether they were
true or not I don't know but the crwod ate it up; and afterwards away from
the dias  admist  back slapping and cigars I was asked to the "pig roast" and
turkey shoot out at our "camp"
to which I politely deferred to my schedule; and Groucho's famous quote:

That I never joined clubs that would have me  for a member.
Pyrate
Ps The sons have about 40,000 members here (and abroad)

Michael  from a stonemasons journal

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