A Damned Yankee in Dixie

Now that we’ve lived in Georgia for almost five years and actually own property here, I guess I can consider my self a Damn Yankee. In case you don’t know the difference between a plain Yankee and a Damn Yankee, the Yankee comes south in the winter to get away from winter, but the Damn Yankee stays.

I’ve noticed that most of the southern states have a town named “Green” plus something. Like Greenville, Greensboro, Greenwood and Bowling Green. (Well yes, a lot of northern states have towns with “green” in their names, but they prefer to pronounce it as “gren”, as in Greenwich, CT – How do you get to Grenich from Greenwich? Just drive north.)

And what southern state would be complete without naming at least one highway the Jefferson Davis Highway. Old Jeff wasn’t much of a hit in the North, but he sure lives on in the South long after his mortal soul passed on.

Now the area that I live in, Augusta, Georgia, shares a border with South Carolina and the metropolitan area continues on to North Augusta and even Aiken, SC. Our particular stretch of highway known as “The Jefferson Davis Highway” is route 1 between the two cities. There are several stone monuments at intersections along the route designating it as such, and each one flies a Confederate flag along with Old Glory.

The total area comprising Augusta and Aiken is referred to as the Central Savannah River Area, or CSRA for short. I know that the natives here won’t agree with me, but I truly think the abbreviation is code for CSA, which we all know stands for Confederate States of America.

One thing I really like about Georgia, everybody seems to be laid back and casual. True, there are a lot of bible-thumping Baptists here, but for the most part they are not prone to proselytizing. I have to say they do build some pretty impressive churches though.

An interesting custom that the southern states observe is Confederate Memorial Day. Each state has its own day, but they mostly fall in April or May. However, it is never celebrated on the same day as the national holiday of Memorial Day, the last Monday in May. No, it is a special day to honor those Confederate troops who fought in the War of Northern Aggression—their title for what northerners know as the Civil War.

Don’t misinterpret what I’m telling you, though. I’ve got nothing against Dixie, and in fact I like it a lot better here than I did up north. The climate is a lot more people-friendly, as are the people themselves, and a lot of the manufacturing that used to exist only north of the Mason/Dixon line has migrated south now.

I even sing that southern classic, Dixie, with my quartet, and down here we don’t sing it like they do up north as a spirited march. No, down in Dixie it’s a hymn and you sing it with reverence in your voice and heart. And whenever it is sung, everyone in the room stands up and some even have tears in their eyes.

I often wonder what would happen if the states that seceded from the Union back in 1861 did so again today. Would it create another Civil War? Could there be two separate nations that lived in peace with each other but with different forms of government?

I sometimes think that the only way we’re ever going to straighten out the mess that the federal government has gotten us into is to divide into two countries along the lines of the current Blue States and Red States. But then, that’s just too simplistic, and a lot of those Blue States are separated by what is deridingly called “flyover territory.”

I know it is just idle pipe dreaming, but there certainly are a lot of us who are vehemently opposed to the welfare nation that Congress has made us. And please note that I am not blaming any one party; both are guilty of the creating the current mess. Neither seems capable of solving it.

So here I am, a Damn Yankee converted to a Dixie Confederate with a dream that probably won’t ever come true in my lifetime. But I can still dream, can’t I? At least I don’t think they’ve taken that away yet. Heck, I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

I think I’ll sing a verse of Dixie.