Southern Man

I've been told my grandpa was a jazz drummer who had an opportunity to study under Buddy Rich. My grandmother told me that but she didn't know who he was so I kind of believe her.

Point aside he lived in Traer, IA. It was a nice small white town. Until a jazz musician named Bill Bell moved in. Apparently he was friends with my grandpa.

They wrote Go home n***** on his home in the night.

I like this song but Neil Young doesn't even have American citizenship.

As the story goes he was beat up in Alabama for having long hair in a bar.

I'm not sure if he really was distraught by racism or had a cross to burn (no pun intended - sorry if that wasn't funny).

I do like Neil Young and when I lived in Alabama a good deal of people I knew did too.

I had a friend from chi town tell me it was odd hearing intelligent people with southern accents. My mom's told me the same thing. She says y'all now. She also said it was odd seeing the flags when she moved to Savannah - the attitude was we lost get over it.

My roommate was from Pittsburgh and he said y'all.

Unless you spend time in the south you don't understand.

If you want to have a scholarly debate there is a strong argument to make that a tariff started the civil war. Slavery was a strong factor. But because Virgina was the first state to secede and that was a huge contributing factor you could make a very strong argument that the domino effect wouldn't have occurred.

People are nice in the south. Black or white. If you treat them with respect they will respect you, for the most part.