Confederate Nostalgia, or Call to Violence?

I am happy to see the current push to remove, or provide context to, Confederate monuments.* It was always an issue I treaded carefully.

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia and lived there for 11 years in the 1960s to 1970s. Since I wasn’t born there, and in fact, moved there from solid Yankee country, I always felt like a visitor and reacted to the many monuments, Confederate memorabilia and symbols as I would a tourist to another country. I felt I needed to respect their history as an outsider would, and not interject my philosophy or beliefs on their precious ideology. Plus, it was clear that the south was annihilated by the Civil War and I felt no need to ram their loss further down their throats.

Like a tourist, I admired the monuments on Monument Avenue (Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, etc.) as a depiction of bygone eras. It was just history. It was quaint.

Through the years, the furor grew over the unseemly glorification of the Old South portrayed by these symbols. However, I still felt conflicted by the drive to remove Confederate monuments.

After all, the history of our country is rooted in its enslavement and subjugation of others to benefit the well-heeled. That legacy continues today. Many, if not all, of our country’s historic heroes and business tycoons were guilty of being slaveowners; being hostile to women, children and minorities; and exploiting workers’ safety for higher profits.

It seemed hypocritical to pick on the South, when the entire country is guilty of advancing on the backs of others. Are we trying to re-make our history by removing symbols that are deeply offensive to ourselves and others? Are we trying to white-wash who we really are? 

The debate has appeared to reach an apex with the recent violence in Charlottesville. But in truth, the violence has always been there, simmering just below the surface in people who desperately want to hold onto "how things used to be." Who want to "keep blacks in their place." 

In Charlottesville, an earnest white girl was killed. Her fresh white face has stared back at us in newscasts and media feeds. Now, everyone has leaped into the fray. White supremacists have killed one of their "own". The violence is too close to home to overlook.

Still, I don't believe that the push to remove Confederate symbols is white-washing. Or a trendy, feel-good measure. Charlottesville has shown us that the fervor to keep Confederate symbols is driven by people who want to reverse history. They want segregation to return. They believe they are racially superior.

I’ve been heartened by seeing many southerners lambast those hateful symbols of their past and protest for their removal. They have learned that clinging to Confederate ideals is not patriotism. It’s racism. It’s glorifying a history of treason and enslavement. If they have grown beyond that, then so can all of us.

*I can only hope that the monuments are not replaced with Pokemon kiosks.

The REAL Reason for Child Obesity!

I was reading an article in a nostalgia magazine (National Trust for Historic Preservation) about road trips that families took in the '60s and '70s and how everyone has a story about staying in one of the many roadside motels during that time.

I can still smell the hot summery chlorine of the pool and feel the rough patches of warm cement under my toes. I could swim and splash and dive in a pool for hours, until my shoulders turned pink and my fingers wrinkled. You could also sit by the pool and wave at passing convertibles along the 2-way highway, or do the elbow pump at semis to get them to blast their horns. And they always would. (I still have a fondness for truckers even today).

So then I got to thinking about riding in the car itself. My brother and I would roughhouse and tumble and tease each other and play "see it" games and laugh and shout until Mom and/or Dad said, "Enough. You're bothering your Mother/Father." To their immense credit, I don't remember them shushing us all that much, but I'm sure they snapped a time or two.

And then it hit me: Kids are obese nowadays because they are rigidly pressed in car seats or belts, from the second of leaving utero, disallowing them from any significant movement whatsoever. They perch, poor things, strait-jacketed like Hannibal Lecter--maybe the regs require muzzles too?

Gad.

It seems that kids are physically restrained and forbidden from developing an iota of muscle tone until the first soccer whistle blows.

By then, it's too late.

Of course, I can't recommend eliminating all of the car safety features that we have now. Cars used to be steel fortresses, able to withstand taps and nudges with nary a scratch to show. Anything less than an 18-wheeler barreling down full speed toward you, would barely evoke a sigh out of the old Olds. Cars now are made of little more than corrugated cardboard with a little plastic thrown in for looks. And folks drive like they're batty, unfocused, preoccupied---and slamming into things willy-nilly.

So the li'l fellers must remain entombed.

OK, I didn't say I had a solution for the obesity, just the reason. Every Eureka moment can't make me Archimedes.

I know! Wrap hand and leg weights around 'em and have 'em do reps while they're packed in the car. Just be sure to remove the weights before the kids jump in the pool.

O_o