Independence Day

[ssgross]

...Being a proud Ohio native, I made the mistake of hanging a portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman in my office as a young and stupid graduate student in Columbia, SC. I took it down only because I got so sick and tired of every student who ever walked by giving me the business over it. My wife, also a proud Ohio native, decided it should stay in the closet instead of hanging at home if we wanted to have at least of hope of having friends while we lived there.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

"The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defence. Through this we can build, we must build, a defence against repetition."

Simon Wiesenthal

Some of our (and all) history is good and some bad, failing to acknowledge either does not
not make them not so. Wise persons learn from others mistakes the simple not even from their own.

[Bob Womack]

...Being a proud Ohio native, I made the mistake of hanging a portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman in my office as a young and stupid graduate student in Columbia, SC. I took it down only because I got so sick and tired of every student who ever walked by giving me the business over it. My wife, also a proud Ohio native, decided it should stay in the closet instead of hanging at home if we wanted to have at least of hope of having friends while we lived there.

An interesting flip side: My in-laws decided to retire to theSouth, chased out of New Jersey by taxes and the cost of living. They asked my wife to accompany them on their house hunting trip in the sticks (country) outside of Charlottesville, VA. They stopped in a little diner which had pictures of the Confederate generals hanging on the walls. My father-in-law got on a tear (started complaining) about Southerners and declared, in his Long Island accent, "I don't know what the deal is. The Civil War is over and the South LOST!"

My lovely and intelligent wife who has lived in the South for forty years got in his face and said, "In case you haven't figured it out, you are surrounded by Southerners, many of them rednecks who are proud of their heritage. These are the kinds of people who carry rifles in the cabs of their pickup trucks! You'd better watch your mouth!"

It is an interesting conundrum that it is possible to be proud of your heritage and at the same time acknowledge the sins of your forefathers. One of my forefathers was grievously wounded fighting for the Union Army in Atlanta. On the other side, my father's and brother's middle name came from a friend of the family who was General Lee's personal chaplain and served in his headquarters company. Both sides of the family came to the continent at the Jamestown settlement, the first English settlement here. There is absolute peace between the sides of my family.

Bob

[Ovidio]

Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting.