Way back in the day, I used to get together with certain friends and play a strategic board game. It was cut-throat competition, no quarter asked or given. Somewhat to my bemusement, I acquired the sobriquet “Johnny Reb.”
There’s an old adage that sometimes a nick-name is a better reflection of one’s self than a given name is. Years later, I gave it some thought, and finally concluded that a little bit of my heritage was showing its true colors.
According to my family history, my great-great granddaddy was an officer in the Confederate army. His son, my great-grandfather Bill, moved to L.A. around 1900, after running down to Mexico to avoid some “trouble”. Bill married a woman from the Tennessee hill-country and my paternal grandmother was a result of that union.
Some 50-odd years later, my family ended up in Corning. The generations, the years, and the miles had never completely erased our Tennessee/Texas twang. Once we got to Corning, we found that almost everyone talked just like us.
We preserved other remnants of our Southern heritage. I grew up eating pan-fried steak, boiled greens, and green beans cooked with bacon grease. We had guns and I learned how to hunt. And I’m still kinda nuts about cars and driving.
So despite my patina of acquired education and status, I’m still a little bit Southerner. I understand rebellion, especially against authority and government. It’s not always a bad thing, but a little bit goes a long way.
I’ve also seen racism and blind hatred, and I utterly reject them. Hatred is the most destructive of emotions. It is as strong and intense as love, yet it poisons those who harbor it. Racism is the ultimate statement of “us versus them”, and it is a dysfunctional mind-set.
The present District Attorney’s office still operates on the old “us versus them” premise. It is good guys vs. bad guys, the clean and virtuous against the dirt-bags, the men in white hats at war with all the dirty grays. We need a new paradigm for government. In this new millennium, “us” has to include everybody.
You know, I can still talk like a good ol’ boy when I need to, but I just can’t bring myself to be one.
