Vacationing In Purgatory or Hooray For The Confederacy!

The flag of slavers.

Many people think I bad mouth the South. Of course , when I mean the South I'm not talking South America (though Hugo Chavez is giving it a bad name) rather I'm talking about the states that made up the Confederacy. "Andy," people say, "no one really cares about the Civil War in the South. That whole War of Northern Aggression has been made up by late night comics."

Well, I'd like present Exhibit A in my defense.

I was vacationing south of the Mason Dixon Line a few years ago. This was not my choice. I was out voted. You see it was a group vacation with my in-laws. My brother in-law and his wife lived in Georgia and it was thought a good idea to meet approximately half way... Virginia. We rented a house in Mathew's Parish (just the name makes me think of a shallow gene pool) by the beach.

I am not a "sun and fun" guy. I am a "let's go to a museum" guy or "watch me get drunk" guy. Needless to say the beach and beautiful sunny weather got lame pretty fast. I was going to LA for a pitchfest (being a masochist I write a blog and screenplays) and had to prepare. This meant going to the Kinko's the next town over. I drove off.

It was easy to find and I completed my tasks quickly. On the way home I spied a DWG's (Dopey White Guy's) heaven: Denny's. What's there not to like? High fat greasy food and they serve it by the truckloads! I went in. I forget what I was eating (maybe due to all the cholesterol swishing around in my brain) when it happened. A happy white family walked by me and being a people watcher by trade I watched. Yep, first comes Dad Patriarch of the family. There's Mom and little Sis. Oh, and here is Jr wearing...

A Heroes of the Confederacy t-shirt.

Yep all the heroes were there: Jackson, Davis, Beauregard, and my personal fave Robert E. Lee. It was wrong on soooo many levels. Let's say my boy when he's old enough to do really stupid stuff ( he's only 7 right now so it's still pee-wee league stupid stuff) buys a shirt like that and I find it in his drawer I would simply burn it in front of him. If he wore it out in public I would hope that he'd get his ass kicked. And I'm sure he would.

But this is the South. Obviously there are few safeguards against such prime time, major-league stupidity.

People may say, "It's OK. It's their culture. It's their heritage!"

Yep. Didn't they fight to keep slavery going? Did I miss something important?

I don't think you see many Germans parading around in public with, "Heroes of the Third Reich" shirts on.

Maybe I wasn't in Purgatory anymore. It was suspiciously hot.