Big ol'dusty-colored coon/Headed 'crost the road./Like to run him over./Like to lost my load/When I swerved to miss him/Out there in the little hours/All slippery in the mist.

Big ol' dusty coon,/Where you goin' on a night like this?/Tryin' to get us both killed/Just to be goin'from west to east/Off out north of Austin here?/I can tell you sure/As the oaks are cut for city moods,/Ain't nothin' east but legaleze./Better go back home and sleep in peace,/You big ol'dusty coon.

Don't make no diff'rence, anyhow./That truck I passed back yonder, now,/He'll prob'ly take you out, and how,/You big ol' dusty coon.

Besides, ain't no hounds worth hearin',/And ain't no moon tonight./Ain't no hunters with corn cob pipes./Sure ain't no new ones to tell old lies./I wish you found a crawdad closer to home./I know I'll miss you when you're gone,/You big ol' dusty coon.

Why don't you leave this black 4-lane/To them worthless possums?/They ain't nearly got the brains/To slick the road so bad as you,/You big ol' dusty coon.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), March 27, 2004

Answers

Excellent pome, my friend! Just saying the name, Lee-AND-der, conjured up summer kid memories. For those of you who don't know, J and I happily misspent stolen hours of our youth in one of those magical places which a kid is fortunate to fall into once in a generation. The bluebonnet and mesquite covered hills of central Texas, where two rivers met under a one-lane bridge, and there was only a post office/general store to slow the lost traveller. In the summer, city kids would converge on summer homes and fish camps. In the winter, it would boil down to a few ranch kids and some like me and J, who just happened to somehow be growing up there.

When I came, with my terminally ill father and mother, J's folks owned the fish camp under the old bridge. I thought then, as I do now, that his dad, and mine, were the manliest men I could imagine. Both big and raw and strong, at least mine had been strong in youth, with hands that could build houses and roads or teach a kid to cast a red-and-silver bass spoon along a weedy bankline.

And I remember a few nights wasted hunting coons. Soft Texas autumn nights, so beautiful under their full moons that we never could shoot a coon even when we treed one. It just would have been sacrilege somehow, like hunting in a great cathedral. The sounds of the killing and the silence of the dying, would both have been a torment to the sighing of the stars and the singing of the forest.

It occurs to me just now, that after forty years I still miss my father. And the days of a boy among the wild persimmons and the rushing rivers.

-- lon frank (lgal@exp.net), March 27, 2004.

(((J))) (((Lon)))

You guys are precious.

-- helen (as@good.as.a.mule.too), March 27, 2004.

Would it bay outa line tuh admit that I actually shot a few coons? Times uz tuff, yew no, an a coon or ringtail or even a skonk ud bring maybe a buck an a haf to three bucks or some years. I hate tuh tell on im, Ol Lon, but J kilt a few too, tho he uz more thuh kind tuh drift a boat along thuh bank with a flashlight an shine em in thuh trees then fish em out o thuh water.

Hey, Redneck, you quit telling such tall tales. You know I was always just swooning at the sound of the crickets, like Young Lon. I'll have to admit, though that there was something magical about the lake country. It didn't hurt any that there were several families of lissom lasses in the area. Men children had plenty to swoon about. We got KTSA San Antonio in the daytime (anybody remember Ricky Ware, "the Rockin' Ghost?")and KOMA Oklahoma City at night (before it went C&W for a spell). There was one TV station to watch, and we didn't watch it much.

You could hear cars cross the long, one-way board bridge for miles. Makes me wonder now how we ever got any sleep. But I guess you get used to it. That and the fact that hardly anybody ever crossed it after about seven-thirty in the evening anyway. You had to drive at least twelve miles in any direction to hit a paved road when we first moved to the fishing camp. Dirt roads in that part of the State are granite gravel, so they were all-weather, but still dusty in dry spells. The land was new and the springs were abundant and clean and full of big fish. It was a place for dreaming big dreams.

(At this point, Redneck breaks into "Summer time, and thuh livin' is easy...," humming the parts where he doesn't know the words.)

The developers have had their ways with most of it now. Every once in awhile for fifteen years after I left, I'd get so homesick I couldn't stand it. Sometimes I'd go hundreds of miles, then, once there, just drive through on the new highways and cross the new concrete bridges without even stopping. There's not much work unless you inherit the ranch or daddy owns the bank or something. Young Lon and I and the friends and the special girl I would return to see, everybody moved away. But we carry sustaining memories of being brought up with the earth and the water and good friends and thinking that bluebonnet vistas in the spring and the smell of honeysuckle in the morning were normal, and there was once a time when the future was benign and full of good things just waiting for us to grow old enough to accept.

(At this point, Richard Harris--where'd he come from?--breaks into "Camelot.")

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), March 27, 2004.

Swerving all over to miss the 'coon?

Must be meander.

Unless you're swervin' so far you're leanerin' the truck over right and left......

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), March 28, 2004.

Great poem J. Seeing as how I like happy endings, I am imagining the truck behind got a flat, giving the coon plenty of time to get home to his Missus.

Such lovely memories Lon & J. It seems to me we were the lucky generation when it came to the amount of freedom we had as youngsters. A bunch of us could go off all day, across the paddocks, letting our scrawny legs and imaginations run wild. We used to set up jumps and ride our proud steeds over them regardless of the fact that none of us had ever been close enough to even pat a horse.

Seeing as we're 'fessing up Redneck. I have to admit as a youngster I went rabbitting with the family. Hearing a rabbit scream when the shot wasn't a clean kill cured me of hunting for life. If I had to do it to feed my family I would, but fortunately that isn't necessary today (they'd be a very skinny family).

-- Carol (c@oz.com), March 29, 2004.

Ah recollect a time when me an a fren went off jis knockin aroun one time. He had a pistol an I never shot one to speak of before. There was this big ol rabbit out in this field beside thuh road. He wuz too far off fer thuh pistol, so we shot at him a few times with thuh rifle (both guns uz twenty-twos) but didn't seem to hit him. He kept hopping around like nothin. This warnt acceptable atall, so I says let me out an pull over there, an I got out an my buddy pulled over by thuh bar ditch. I took thuh pistol an climbed over thuh bob war fence an commenced a shootin at thuh varmint, but I dint have thuh trigger down yet an he'd hop just afore Id cut loose. Mah buddy, meanwhile wuz at thuh fence shootin at him too with about thuh same luck till thuh rifle run dry. I finally decided to just walk up to thuh thing an do him in. I figgered it uz only fittin to put him outa his misery since weuz boun ta hit him some. But I only had one shot lef. I had to walk kinda funny cause thuh field uz new plowed an muddy an sloppy. Part o our trouble was that thuh rabbit would sort of disappear inta thuh furrows now an then. Anyway, I got right up on im an took dead aim, an he jumped right in tween my feet as I squeezed er off. I din see no blood on im, an ize by now close enough ta kiss im, just about. My buddy had trailed me some, waddlin acrost thuh furrows with that empty rifle, an I says "thow me that thaing." Well, I caught it an took it by thuh barrel an swung it like a baseball bat an caught him flat an sent him over about two rows. Him an the buttstock o thuh rifle. Ize afraid to look at my buddy, it bein his shootin irons an all. Since I had to go over there anyway to retrieve the stock o thuh broken gun, I deetermined to kick that son of a gun to next Sunday an glopped mah way over to where he was. Now, I use ta consider mahself a sure thing for a fiel goal anywhere from 35 yards in, an I measured that rabbit an gave him the wickedest kick you ever saw, or at least that was my intent. He was gettin too good at this game an hopped just as Ize in mid swing. My plant foot went out from under me on that muddy field and I laid out flat o mah back, but caughy mahself on mah elbows an heels, archin my back an bowin mah neck to keep everthin else outa thuh mud. That rabbit he just hopped on off a piece. My buddy came over an took a hand an stood me up like a board. I don't think he'd a done it except he uz worried about gettin mud offa me all over his car if he didn help. An he couldn leave me cause I still had half o his rifle, tho I thaink he considered it. Anyways, by now thuh rabbits over by the far edge of the field, an we mucked back over thuh fence to thuh car an drove home plumb deefeeted. That rabbit done whupped us down. When we uz youn an strong an feelin our oats, too. Don't spect me ta be sympathizin with no rabbit screams. They never had no sympathy fer mine. I probly oughta had therapy er somethin.

-- Redneck (down@forthe.count), March 29, 2004.

Oh that's too funny Redneck. Sorry for your misfortune, but it's nice to know the rabbits have a win occasionally. It probably still gets a laugh when he and his cronies get together down at "Fur & Feathers" on a Saturday night. I can just hear them. "Come on Dodger, do the bit where he landed in the mud again". Tee hee hee!

-- Carol (c@oz.com), March 31, 2004.

Kit and I just rolled in from three days on the road. Nearly 1700 miles, up across Texas and back again. Yesterday, I drove a road from my childhood. It's the old highway which roughly parallels the newer interstate which runs through Austin. When I was a kid, after we had moved to the "hill country" of central Texas, we still traveled back to San Antonio frequently, for my father's hospital visits.

Along the way, just south of where the Blanco river lazily crossed the roadway, there was an old stone fence. It ran for miles along the side of the road; just field stones stacked dry one upon the other, about three feet high. To a kid like me it was quite inspiring, an amazing artifact of men’s work. It was something built from the natural world, rather than brought in, or paved over, or put up straight and painted up proper-like. It was a living thing somehow, a porous thing which had absorbed the grunts and groans of men and boys - soaked up their sweat and dried it to tiny salt licks.

The roughly ordered stones mimicked the road cuts, with their exposed layers of limestone and schist; a man-made, but somehow natural outcropping of weathered rocks, more ancient than anything within the boundaries of my young imagination. The live oaks had grown close and even toppled it in places, as if they resented it’s contrived strength and sought to assert the authority of living wood over stone. Along it’s way, I’d spot small dark ground squirrels and the round bodies of mourning doves. Once, even a ghostly group of wild turkeys stalked silently in a morning’s mists.

I looked forward to seeing the old wall again. I thought to pull over and run my hands along it’s surfaces, to feel a connection with those days past, to hear my father’s voice again in the stillness of that countryside. I would tell my son again of the grandfather he never knew. Just the anticipation brought back the recollection of his eyes, his smile. Perhaps the touch of stones would awaken forgotten treasures of memory.

But, today there is new traffic along the highway, new businesses, new buildings all straight and proper. There is no stone fence to provoke either memories or imaginations. I stopped into a small store, just built “Texas Style”, white limestone and green metal roof. The girl behind the counter had come from up north somewhere, and had never heard of the stone fence, but an older customer, overhearing my inquiry, said it had been “harvested”. That was the word, “harvested”, for the homes of executives and lawyers in Austin.

I suppose it’s a sure sign of age when one begins to feel betrayed by the advances and aspirations of a new generation. New music, new art. New ideas and new cities. Perhaps I’ll have to change as well, find new horizons. Perhaps I’ll have to look harder for the old roads, for rock fences, and for memories fading in the passing summers.

-- lon and kit (lgal@exp.net), April 08, 2004.

Leander?

Or "Lon-over"?

(Is a "Londover" what they use to get around in LA?)

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 09, 2004.

Hmmm. I think it could also be Lon-under. Especially if he went down under to visit Carol. Yep...Lon under.

-- (sonofdust@lon.under), April 09, 2004.

You are a rare, unique individual, Lon. Not many even notice the things that you do. I hope someday you can make your way to Wales or any other European countryside. Many of the pastures are separated by rock walls and nothing else. I loved looking down into the green valleys and listening to the tinkling bells worn by the grazing sheep. So peaceful!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), April 09, 2004.

Iffen there were rock wall in Wales, ole Lon would have Lonover the wall.

Else he'd suffer from Loudover wails when he went Lonunder them.

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 09, 2004.

Lon, if you ever head down this way there are similar stone walls just over the border from me in Victoria. Whenever I pass them I wonder about the people that built them. Most likely convict labour, working in the heat, building with stone because there wasn't any other fencing material around then (everything had to be brought out by ship). At least they don't get burned down everytime a fire goes through like regular fences.

If you ever decide to be Lonunder I will take you there so that Kit can sit on a stone wall and feel the limestone and if he's lucky, listen to a kookaburra laugh.

Hi Gayla. I'm glad you liked Wales. I was born not too far from there and my paternal grandparents were Welsh. Very different from Oz.

Very clever Robert and Rob, but I think you need a couple more L's in there to make it truly Welsh. Llonover or Llonunder or maybe Llononwall.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), April 10, 2004.

"Llononwall"?

Hmmmmmmmmmmn.

It's nice and sinmetric .... Kinda of missing a lon in the the middle.

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 11, 2004.

Give us a little warning before throwing words like "Stonewall" around. Redneck was napping on the couch but jumped up to attention and snapped a salute. About scared me to death. One minute everything's calm as you please, and the next the air's full of blanket (which got hung on a blade of the ceiling fan) and pillows (one of which knocked my coffee over and tore the paper in two). I thought we'd been hit by a tornado or maybe Redneck was right and that Arab in the ice cream truck that plays "Music Box Dancer" was a terrorist and had mistaken the trailer for a bus. Then I remembered I don't live in a trailer anymore. Redneck was in a bad mood, too, being jerked out of a nap like that. Ya'll ought to be more careful!

-- J (j&R@singin.dixie), April 12, 2004.

Oops, sorry J. Please convey my apologies to Redneck and tell him it is safe to go back to sleep now. I'm guessing St.....ll is a North- South thing, but my knowledge of American history is pretty poor (ok non-existant). I'll leave you to mop up that mess and maybe sooth redneck back to sleep with a lullaby. Sshh.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), April 13, 2004.

"A little" North- South "thing" ??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????

Gee wiz!

He's gonna be jumpin' up and down again.....

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 13, 2004.

Carol--A little history: Thomas Jonathan Jackson, 1824-1863. He was born in Virginia (now West Virginia--one of the effects of war sentiments was to split the state). Jackson was a shabby, nondescript professor of philosophy and artillery tactics at a boys military school when plucked from comfortable obscurity by the U.S. Civil War, which brought to culmination many longstanding unsettled political and civil grievances and animosities but is generally and erroneously thought to have been about the issue of slavery alone. 11 largely agrarian and rural Southern states (including Texas), fearing loss of effective voice in Washington, were pitted against the more urbanized and industrialized North. The North prevailed in the conflict which lasted some 4 years and took a toll of 620,000 fighting men and at least that many more wounded. It was fought in large part in the South, which was pretty much destroyed. Texas was vast, a long way from most of the action and not home to many tempting military targets. It was as close to the Western frontier as to Southern independence and escaped relatively unscathed. General Sam Houston, winner of Texas independence (from Mexico back in 1836--Texas was annexed to the Union in 1848)counselled against joining the Confederacy, but lost. There were notable Texas fighting units, but the Texans who did not join the war effort got to stay home and fight Comanches, who were still raiding at the time. Many of the South's political structures even now are the result of heavy-handed postwar "reconstruction" policies or the local backlash against them. The last Civil War action was in Texas, was won by the South, and took place quite awhile after the War was over because nobody had heard the news. Texas was strategic more as a supply line route for the South than anything else. Southerners who were able often sent their families to Texas as it was thought safer than other areas of the South from direct attack.

The South fought with significantly inferior numbers throughout the War but was blessed with a frontier and military culture and won many engagements they shouldn't have by the tenacity of her troops and the genius of her leadership.

Jackson was quite possibly the Patton of his time. He was nicknamed "Stonewall" Jackson after his troops were said to have stood their ground like a stone wall in action early in the war.

Together with Rob't E Lee, commander of the Confederate (Southern) armies, Jackson was a legendary tactician. He was often victorious by virtue of an ability to show up in force, untimely and at inconvenient places, when thought to be far away. His infantry were called "foot cavalry." Under Jackson, they defeated three opposing armies virtually at the same time near Richmond, Virginia in 1862.

In action near Chancellorsville in 1863, a Jackson offensive routed Yankee (Northern)general Hooker in a flanking action launched late in the day. The formerly Union-held battlefield was disorganized, and Jackson's small party was shot up by his own men (who had heard false rumors of an impending cavalry assault)while riding away from the front lines. He was at the time organizing a rare night attack. He died of wounds a few days later.

Jackson was a devout Christian and refused early in the war to do battle on Sunday. I believe he was a Deacon. In and out of delerium at the end, his last words were, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

Joe Hooker, the Union general he defeated in that last action, and who was very nearly captured, is described as "superbly mounted, a picture of manly beauty, accompanied by a large staff." Neither Jackson, who was pale and high-voiced with deepset, small blue eyes and a blade of a nose, nor his favorite horse, a captured Union mount, were beauties. The horse, called Little Sorrel among other things, has been described as "as striking as the master; it contributed much to the general awkwardness of the pair. It was close-coupled and short, powerfully built, with a neck ludicrously large for so compact an animal...had huge, intelligent eyes and was treated like a house pet. He had a habit of lying down like a dog on halts...Jackson often fed him apples at such times." Jackson often sent virtually all of his staff away on various errands during a battle.

When Jackson died, all the South mourned. His death, coincidentally, seemed to signal the beginnings of a steady decline in Southern fortunes. The South was already in trouble, resource-wise, and one of the reasons for the need of a vigorous night assault was that the successfully advancing Southern troops had after awhile begun to slow to partake of the food in the overrun Northern camps and lines, giving the Yankees time to regroup and failing to take some important objectives farther along. Later, the pivotal battle of the war (a Northern victory)was largely occasioned by some Southern elements of the army raiding the town of Gettysburg for shoes.

That's probably more than you wanted to know about why the word "Stonewall" brought Redneck to attention.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), April 14, 2004.

Should I throw my hat into the room before I come in?

Thank you J., for the explanation. No offence intended. You make a fine history teacher.

I guess it's going to take a while to settle Redneck down, so I'll just slip quietly out before he sees me.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), April 15, 2004.

Naw, it's OK. Does mah hort good ta see J typin away like that with tears in his eyes. He'd have us bleve that he ain't a "bubba" like thuh rest of us, but we all no better. An it warn't like yew shot me or anythin. It was time ta git up anyway an take a shahr in preparashun for thuh days activities--whatever they might turn out ta be (waink, waink).

Drat. I put a lock on the door where the computer's kept, but Redneck's learned to pick it already. Ah well. Just consider the source and don't think too badly of us for keeping him around if he says something untoward. It's like weird kin, you know. They're still, somehow, kin, and I don't have the heart to throw him out. Also, he comes in handy for handling stray varmints and fixing the car and stuff like that. He'd be even handier if I could teach him to cook anything that didn't involve Armour Star Treet (kind of like Spam) and eggs, but I guess it's a small price to pay for cheap amusement to let him hang around.

-- J&R (Redneck@overthe.shock), April 16, 2004.

Much appreciated J. & Redneck.

Coincidentally, I bought a photo mag. this week and in it was a picture of four men in Confederate Army uniform. The article was about a man (Rob Gibson) from NY who has given up his career as an engineer and moved to Gettysburg becasue of his passion for the Civil War and photography. He has opened a studio there and uses the original pre-1900 wet-plate type photgraphic gear.

Gettysburg must be rich in history. I hope you have had the chance to visit there.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), April 17, 2004.

Gettysburg, being one of the largest and certainly the most telling battle of the War, retains a real and mythical hold on both sides. Gen'l Lee appears to have begun to believe his own press to a degree, and some of the Southern actions (notably "(Gen'l)Pickett's Charge") were ill-advised. One of the Southern generals remained bitter toward Lee, long after the war maintaining "that old man killed my regiment" (or words to that effect). Fast-moving cavalry provided the armies with forward intelligence in those days, and Lee's cavalry under fabled Gen'l JEB Stuart appears to have sought to repeat a formerly effective publicity coups by running a large circle behind Northern lines. He was thus not available to feed Lee information on enemy positions and strength before or early in the battle. The War was such a part of everyone's lives and lasted so long that there were large reunions of military units for decades thereafter. When the surviving soldiers got old, someone decided to bring as many as would come (and there were many)together at Gettysburg. A perhaps ill-conceived re-enactment of Pickett's charge started off with the old Southern men once more starting across that blood-fertilized open ground (I think it was a corn field at the time of the battle), giving throat once again to Rebel yells as they moved slowly forward. The mock "charge" was met with silence, and then a huge groan went up from the former Union lines, and the old Northern vets abandoned their positions and ran out to embrace the Gray-clad line in the field. I find in that anecdote the best of America, both the ability to remain undefeated even in defeat and the capacity to embrace an end to the posture of the conqueror in victory. Too bad the Northern politicians did not share the desire for healing exhibited by those who actually fought. A notable exception was President Lincoln himself, who penned his famous Gettysburg Address and delivered it to unfavorable reviews (reporters at the time were geared to to longer and more pompously-delivered speeches). Too bad he was assassinated before he could effectively lead the nation in healing rather than exploitation.

If the War did nothing else, it taught America the art of war. Europeans, witnessing the slaughter, artillery tactics, newly invented weaponry, innovative use of the railroads, etc. wanted no part of the U.S. for awhile. Neither did America desire foreign Empire-building to the extent of their European counterparts. The end of the Civil War and it's aftermath also put many disenfranchised and now property-less Southern soldiers loose on the land, the younger of whose only real skill was fighting This situation added fire to various ugly border wars which continued after official cessation of hostilities, range wars and outlaw activities bridging into the brief and storied period of the so-called Indian Wars and the cowboy West later in the 19th Century. Ol' Lon's more familiar with that era.

By the way, I saw on TV yesterday coverage of the burial of some recovered remains of the crew of the Hunley, which I think was a Confederate attempt at a submarine that sunk during the war. There were pictures of gray-clad (Confederate uniformed) companies of "soldiers" and military-like ceremonies. (Again, illustrating rapid advancement in inventions of war machines during the period as well as enduring regional sentiment.) The numerous monuments to the fallen Southern dead (due to the manner of recruitment of the time, friends and neighbors often fought together, and virtually all the menfolk from whole towns were wiped out in some actions of the war), and representations of the Confederate flag (usually the familiar "Stars & Bars" flag, which was really a battle flag rather than the official flag of the Confederacy--the battle flag is incorporated variously in some Southern states' flags)are currently reviving regional sentiments. Current zeal for political correctness is seeking removal of all such reminders of the heritage and sentiments of Southern history--usually under the guise that they improperly glorify black slavery.

I'd like to visit the Civil War battlefields. My wife and I visited Baltimore and Washington DC briefly in '97 or '98. But there is also still a lot of Texas that I haven't seen yet. I'm not sure a lifetime's long enough to take it all in, along with the international sights I'd like to see someday. We haven't even been to Australia yet!

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), April 18, 2004.

What's so striking is teh way Vicksburg, Petersburg, and Atlanta battlefields (places where the fighting "slowed down" for a few weeks and months) look strangely like WWI battlefiedls: mud, trenches, emplacements, zig-zag communications trenches, wires, forts, mortars and even tunnels under the enemy trenches. Railroads, material, industrial power, and shipping proved the long-term key, just like WWI and WWII. But in the short term, better generals and better fighting almost turned it around.

Strange that the Europeans didn't forsee the parallels.

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 19, 2004.

Thanks J. It must have been terribly hard for those men fighting against their own kind. I expect there were some people with family fighting on both sides. How hard that must have been. I also didn't know that Pres. Lincoln was assassinated.

I hope you and your wife get to travel a whole lot more and I'm sure you'll let Redneck tag along. If you come down this way you can leave him with me for a while. I'll take him down the local, he'll fit right in and they'd love that accent.

"Strange that the Europeans didn't forsee the parallels." Robert, I guess it's like some wise person (who?) said, if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to keep making the same mistakes.

-- Carol (c@oz.com), April 20, 2004.

Robert & Carol, you bring to mind a few more thoughts: the particular battles you mention resembled seiges of those Southern cities, which involved fixed positions on one side because they can't move the City, and on the other because there's no other way to cut it off completely from supply while maintaining pressure. In the larger sense, anytime the movement of armies in proximity slowed down, everybody dug in. In many ways, we didn't learn the lessons either. The trench-bound WWI Europeans shortly included a lot of trench-bound Americans. Though it's definitely progress, identifying the problem is not always the same as knowing the solution (or, in some cases, being able to implement it in concert with allies). Those initially perpetrating such slugfests don't stop and think or can't forsee (sometimes it's one, sometimes the other) that the schoolyard shoving match of some regional conflict may become the chaos of war on a larger scale. National psyche of combatants plays a big part, too. WWI kind of snowballed on the Germans, but their animosity toward the Russians really turned it into an internaional affair. The way the vanquished were treated between the wars contributed to the chip-on- the-shoulder mood that led to WWII (that and a liberal dose of crazed leadership). The Japanese have little excuse in my view, their actions smack of simple opportunism, though longstanding cultural rifts, particularly with the Chinese and perhaps with us on an economic plane, were involved. In Vietnam, we tried a totally different tactic than static lines and positions, but that didn't seem to work out either. We also confirmed a relatively new reality for us, that winning on the battlefield does not necessarily result in a win, and that supply lines involve national will as well as material. The Russians found it out in Afghanistan later.

Sometimes simple ignorance is involved, as in Hussein's fizzled prediction of "the mother of all battles" (which turned out to be a turkey shoot in Desert Storm) or accident as in the failure to forsee the loss of Afghanistan and Iraq to Western influence by perpetrators of 9/11 (who further illustrate their childishness by still spinning it as a good thing). The same holds for both sides in the recent, almost accidentally-averted shoving match over Kashmere by the India and Pakistan which in all likelihood would have had nuclear consequences.

Christians' views of various apocalyptic scriptures are divided into several prevalent camps. Around the turn of the century (1900) there were "Post-Millennialists" who interpreted that we are all living in the thousand-year period of peace mentioned in scripture. WWI killed the credibility of that perspective.

Sorry to "take off" like that, but your mention of learning the lessons reminded me of some of these things and others. Carol, there were examples of families as well as states split by the North-South struggle. Some of the most acrimonious situations I know are intra- family. Try putting grandma in a nursing home or divvying up the estate of someone who died without a will and you will usually run smack into civil war. I admire families that can endure and handle these things without hard feelings.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), April 20, 2004.

Good points.

Thank you!

Note that the "winning" geenerals try to keep the "old ways" and the "old technology" and strategy that "won last time" .... So they fight the next war with their minds in the last war.

While those who lost the last war (or who are losing the current war) are the ones willing to try something new, something that the old generals had not thought of.

-- Robert & Jean (getingwarmer@ga.inthespring), April 21, 2004.

Right you are, Robert. What really concerns me is that with all the potential for adjusting our freedoms involved with the "war on terrorism" (which, by the way, Clinton actually "declared"--seems it's dangerous to declare war and then forget to fight it--go figure!) all we have to show for it are mostly idiotic security measures. Terrorists once used box cutters, so we can't take pocket knives on planes, some guy tried to light his shoes, so we stand in line barefoot. Planes were used, so our primary focus is air transportation(where we still have lapses), McVeigh used a nitrous bomb, so we try to track fertilizer. Establishments remain, for the most part, vulnerable to the vast spectrum of the untried.

-- J (jsnider@hal-pc.org), April 21, 2004.

J, with a husband and daughter who are Civil War buffs, I've been to almost every Civil War battlefield.

Robert mentioned Vicksburg. I would highly recommend you start there. It's not very far from you and it's one of the most impressive in my opinion. Definitely get the tape/CD to listen to as you tour the park. Very informative!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), April 23, 2004.