Alan, I thought I'd express one last thought on this subject, and then I'm going to "hesh up", otherwise Jim will move us over to the wild and wooly News and Views board, and I don't really want to go there.

A few of my fellow Southerners criticize me for not having an emotional position on the Civil War, since, they say, that momentous event impacts us to some extent today.

My response is that just about everything in history impacts later generations to some extent. But if they want to be intellectually (and emotionally) honest, they should be concentrating on, say, the Battle of Tours in 732. That battle continues to have an astronomic impact on us, making the Civil War just a blip on the radar screen in comparison.

Everything we are, everything we believe, everything we have, is due to the victory of Charles Martel and his Frankish army over the Muslim army of Abderame. Without that battle, western civilization would not exist; Christianity would be an obscure footnote in an Islamic history book; our notion of monogamous marriage, our laws, our architecture, our literature, our culture, our science -- everything -- would not exist.

So, if my friends want to get emotional about an historical event, latch on to an event that REALLY affects us to the very core of our being.

Well, Alan, 'nuff said on my part. Can I still be in your gang on the playground?