Herewith a tale of a personal secession and how
it came about. It is possible (though unlikely) that some will not be
interested in my fascinating mental states. I think, though, that
numbers may share them without admitting it. Since many are talking if
only wistfully about secession from the Union, and worry that they are
no longer where they were a few decades back, even though they haven’t
gone anywhere, I offer some thoughts that may resonate.
Time was, you could be fond of America. It wasn’t perfect, as no
country is, but you could like it. I am not speaking of patriotism,
which usually means a loutish jingoism, but rather a sense of place, a
fondness for a region and a people.
This I had. I am, in a sense that surprises me, a Southerner. I didn’t
think of myself this way until recently. It didn’t seem to matter.
At about age four I lived a year in Biloxi, Mississippi while my father
taught some math course at Keesler AFB, then five in Robert E. Lee
Elementary in Arlington, Va., then two in Athens, Alabama, five in rural
King George County, Virginia, and four in Hampden-Sydney College, which
my Venable ancestors founded, in Prince Edward County, Virginia.
More @ NamSouth
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