North Carolina

A man in North Carolina had a flat tire, pulled off on the side of the road, and proceeded to put a bouquet of flowers in front of his car, with another one behind it. Then he got back in the car to wait.

A passerby studied the scene as he drove by, and was so curious that he turned around and went back. He asked the fellow what the problem was.

The man replied, "I got a flat tahr."

The passerby asked, "But what's with the flowers?"

The man responded, "When you break down they tell you to put flares in the front and flares in the back. Ah never did unner-stand it neither."

Tennessee

A Tennessee State trooper pulled over a pickup on I-65. 

The trooper asked, "Got any ID?"

The driver replied, "Bout whut?"

Texas

A Sheriff pulled up next to a guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up, into a ditch by the side of the road.

The Sheriff asked, "Why y'all dumping garbage in the thare ditch? Don't you see that sign, right thar, over your head?"

"Yep," the guy replied. "That's why I'm-a dumpin' it here, 'cause it says: 'Fine For Dumping Garbage.' "

   - - - -

Last week this author was having a beer at a local bar with a Southern friend. Without thinking I told him that I was going to post these jokes on this website.

Slowly he picked his chin up out of his glass of beer, peered over the rim of it at me, and said, “Y'all Yankees 'kin say whut y'all want 'bout the South, but no one never heard o' nobody retirin' an' movin' North.”

He’s right. Enjoy your summer.

 

e                       f

 

So now that you've had a little mint julep humor, how about a little mint julep truth. What follows is a true story...

 

In Defense of The Stars & Bars

All of the hoopla over the Confederate flag reminded this author of something that happened back when he was in the 8th grade, in History class.

In our little town in New England, beginning in the 7th grade, different class topics were taught to us by different teachers. Until then, everything we learned was taught to us by one teacher... in one classroom. All day we stayed in that classroom, and learned from that one teacher. But in the 7th grade things changed. Not only did we begin having different teachers for different subjects, but each subject was taught in a different class room... necessitating our moving from one room to another, all day long. To me this seemed strange. Up until the 7th grade, teachers came to us. From the 7th grade on, we went to the teachers. What the purpose of this was, I'll never know... but as kids, we sure liked it.

By the time of the 8th grade I was a pro at this game. All day long I proudly marched from one room to another... a man in control of his destiny.

One of my fondest memories of this game of "find the teacher" happened at that time, in the 8th grade. That year I had assigned to me a History teacher named Mr. Morrell. His classroom was on the top floor of the school, in a corner room that overlooked the cemetery next door. Because there were no cars streaming through the cemetery, or any other noises that we could discern, Mr. Morrell let us keep all of the windows wide open... and if we felt restless while he taught, he would let us get up and go stand next to the open windows, quietly looking out at the gravestones while he spoke.

One day as I stood there looking out, he stopped talking and asked me a question... presumably to see if I was listening.

The topic he was teaching about had to do with civil wars, and he had been on it for several days. As I recall, on this particular day he had just finished talking of the Roman civil wars, between 100 and 400 BC. Earlier in the hour he had gone through a list of civil wars that resulted in the countries in question being split into separately governed entities, at the end of each war. That is to say, where once there was one country, by the time the civil war was ended, there were two. No matter who won, there was simply no way to put the two sides back together again, under the rule of one, harmonious government.

Among the ones I remember him teaching us of was included the civil war known as the Twenty Years' Anarchy, 695–717, which covered a period of prolonged internal instability in the Byzantine Empire. He also talked of the Ottoman Interregnum, 1402–1413; the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (England, Ireland, and Scotland), 1639–1651; the Russian Civil War, 1917–1921; and the Malayan Emergency (Federation of Malaya), 1948–1960, which was still going on at that time. There were many, many others he covered, but I have forgotten what they were.

On the day in question, when I was standing by the open window, both listening to him and daydreaming at the same time, he finished off his talk of civil wars by speaking about our own Civil War. It was at that point that he stopped and asked me a question.

What he asked me was 'what made America's Civil War different than all the rest' that he had taught us of, so far. I stuttered a reply... which was obviously wrong... to which he suggested that since I had not been listening to him, perhaps it was best that I take my seat again and start paying attention.

Being somewhat of a history buff even back then, and fond of both Mr. Morrell and his History Class, I took my seat but protested that I was listening. A bit boldly, but politely, I said that he had not made his point clear. I couldn't see anything different between our Civil War and that of the hundreds of other countries he had talked of. All of them started because one part of the society in question held a different view from the other part, usually over the issue of what life should be like under their common government. What, I asked him, was different between our Civil War and all the others he had talked about?

The answer he gave has stuck with me ever since.

What he said was that in the case of nearly 100% of the civil wars he had studied, the country that fought the war ended up being torn in two... never to be put back together again. He said that what set America's Civil War apart was that we came out of it a unified nation. For America to fight such a bloody, devastating Civil War, and then come together again after it ended, as one nation, was exceptional.

He went on to say that while many credit Abraham Lincoln with "saving the Union" and keeping the country together, nothing could be further from the truth. What kept us together, he said, was the recognition that the Northern soldiers gained, as they tramped their way through the Southern states, on their campaigns, that the people of the South were in fact better people than those of the North.

I remember him saying this, until today... because as he said it the room... which by then had been sitting on pins and needles as I was sent back to my chair, still protesting that I was listening... erupted in murmurs.

With that, Mr. Morrell took his own seat and smiled.

He went on to explain that what kept the South in the Union after the war was over was not the might of the North, nor the defeat of the South, but the common recognition by both sides that while the North might have had a better industrial foundation from which it could produce the weapons of war needed to wage an aggressive and successful war, the South had a better "value system." Not "values" as in those that prompted Southerners to embrace slavery mind you, but in those principles and practices that defined what the South was, and who the people of the South were.

He said that what kept the South in the Union after its defeat in battle was the simple fact that the North let it keep its pride. Pride was what kept the South from continuing to wage guerrilla warfare for another 20 years, until the North would tire of it and finally let it go its own way... pride.

He went on to explain that the pride he was speaking of was clear "even today"... which at that time was 1958.

And then he went on to give examples: back at the end of the Civil War, Northerners were considered Carpet Baggers... Southerners were considered Southern Gentlemen.

Southern women were Southern Belles... no similar term exists to describe Northern women, he told us.

Grace and manners prevailed in all undertakings Southern people took. The dress of Southerners was more formal, and appropriate for each occasion. On the other hand, Northern men and women dressed in course, dark, homespun clothes, even though they lived in the North, where the finishing factories were that made whole cloth out of the cotton the South sent to them.

Business in the South was done on a handshake, that in the North required a contract. Deception and swindling in business was rife in the North... witness the nickname of Connecticut, as the Nutmeg State, he told us. The Nutmeg State, a moniker that referred then and still does to the fact that itinerant salesmen from Connecticut once roamed the South, selling nutmegs that were in reality little more than stained pieces of carved hardwood. Throughout the South there was not one state like that of Connecticut, whose nickname meant "don't trust these people... they will cheat you."

Through these and other nuances and examples from so long ago, Mr. Morrell made the point repeatedly that as Northern soldiers returned home at the end of the war, they brought back with them stories of the dignity and grace of Southern people and Southern living. He spoke of how the people of the North learned that Southerners stood for honesty, kindness, equity, close family ties, clarity of self understanding, clarity of intent, pride in self sufficiency, an appreciation for art and music, and a strong, centered belief in God.

He said that within less than half a year of the end of the war people across America began to realize that while the South might have been defeated on the battlefield, they were the clear winners when it came down to deciding which society was better as regards a people's fundamental mores. The people of the North lived a mostly uncouth, fever pitched life... those of the South one of character and grace.

Within a year, the general view of the time was that the people of the South were exceptional people... people worth knowing and emulating.

And so it was, as Mr. Morrell put it... the North may have won the war, but the South won the peace. The fact that they could move forward from military defeat by taking pride in who they were and what they represented kept them in the Union.

As to the issue of slavery, Mr. Morrell had his views on that too... a topic he taught us at a later point in time in that year.

He taught us that while what the South did with respect to the enslavement of the negroes was clearly wrong and America... as a nation... needed to address it and stop it, it was no worse than what the North did with respect to the enslavement of children. He told us that for every ton of cotton picked by black slaves in the South, and shipped to the cotton mills of the North, there were hundreds if not thousands of 5 to 9 year olds doing the jobs of "pickers" and "carders" during those days, often for up to 18 hours a day.

On this point he was clear: the sins of the South needed to be excised; but so did the sins of the North... and child slavery was one of them. When slavery ended in the South, the North continued on its merry way to practice the enslavement of children... right up until 1910. What he taught to us was that while by the end of the Civil War the hands of Southern slave owners had been washed clean, with the emancipation of the slaves, those of Northern merchants were still soiled with the filth of child slavery.

It's in this context then that his telling of the story of America having weathered a Civil War in a way that kept the nation together seems profoundly significant... and curious today, as we watch people come out of the woodwork, calling for the banning of the Confederate flag.

Do these people not know what that flag stands for?

To this author, the Stars & Bars are not a symbol of a segment of society that still harkens back to the days when it had slaves, but of a segment of society that for over 100 years most Americans wanted to copy. A people whose men are gentlemen and whose women are ladies, in every sense of the word. A people who... again... for over 100 years, we have all wanted to imitate... for their honesty, grace, kindness, and on and on.

Bring back the Confederate flag. Do away with those who fight it because of their own stupidity, lack of education and overwhelmingly shallow knowledge of American history. When they call for the destruction of the Confederate flag they are showing the same level of ignorance as the  21 year old dropout from Eastover, South Carolina, who shot up the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The two of them... the hateful white supremicists and the race baiting protestors... both over a hundred years removed from the events of the day... are equally ignorant and deserving of our reprobation and damnation.

Send the race baiters and those who make a living out of racial pimping... those that want the Confederate flag lowered... back to school... and tell them to learn what makes America exceptional. Tell them to learn that one of the things that makes our country incomparable to any other is the fact that even during the height of the Civil War, when family members stood toe to toe, fighting each other to death, we were still able, as a people and as a nation, to recognize that of the two sides in that war one held a higher moral ground than the other... even though one of the principles the side that held the higher moral ground was fighting for was wrong. What side was that? It was the South.

The South held a higher level of civil courtesies and moral virtue than the North did back then, and in many ways it still does today. It was not until the North eventually did away with its own form of slavery... child slavery... that it began to earn the respect the South has always had. As for the value of civil courtesies of the kind every Southerner seems to hold inbred, do not sell them short. The average Southerner's attention to small courtesies are part of the price we pay to continue civilization, and we would all do well to emulate them.

If the South wants to fly its Confederate flag to prove that its dignity and pride is intact, let it do so. If it wants to fly its flag to show that today it lives by a higher set of principles than those of its forebears, and honors through that flag the sacrifice those men made in order to give the people of today's South the chance to better their value system with each day that passes, let it do so.

There is no need to place our failings of today on the backs of those who lived in the past. Let us honor their memory. Let the Confederate flag fly.

 

A Northerner