I'm not sure if it is because I spent a good deal of last evening on the phone with my middle daughter Shanna who lives in NC with her sister Rhiannon, or if it is finding some old pictures of when I was living in the South in the 70's and early 80's, or the fact that the only music I have been listening to for weeks have Southern roots; but I can't get my head out of the South this morning. I guess that is a good thang considering where we live lol, but it sometime wears on me pretty hard. It might be hard for some who are lucky enough to have been born, raised, and still live down there, to understand, just how hard times up here are. " Old times here could be easily forgotten", run away, run away, run away to Dixie land". Yet, that just isn't in the cards right now. Pam still has sometime to pay into her retirement for the benefits she has slaved for, the housing market here is at a low, (so we would take a beating sellin this old church, Mayme starts high school next week and wishes to finish school with the same friends that she started kindergarden with. ( I can't blame her for that having moved at least a dozen times by the time I was her age), and frankly there are a whole passel of yankees that still need educating up here. If we left now, who would bother to do that? NO ONE! At the risk of patting my wife and youngest on the back, I truly believe they have made notable contributions to the Southern Cause from way up here. Their dedication has countless times inspired me to try harder myself. If for no other reason than Pam displaying one of those desk top sets with flags of the Confederacy right there in front of the world in a government office in Illinois, is to me an inspiration, let alone the countless displays of courage and Southern pride Mayme has made over the past 4 years at school. What a blessing those two are to me; and knowing my faults as I do, I'm sure I haven't told them often enough how proud I am of them. The same can be said of my two daughters in NC. Geez all the T shirt battles and Pro South /Pro Indian reports they gave in school, and the conflicts they endured down there, yet they graduated with good grades, and entered the work force as productive citizens from a generation labled as "X". I know not how, I got so lucky with my spouse and children, but I did, and I am most thankful to God for that . I wouldn't dream of lying and sayin that I don't miss the red clay backroads and piney woods of Bama, where I really did mature from a wild eyed boy into a family man working in pulp mills and later in the oil fields along side my daddy. I play those memories back over and over again in my head. In fact there are a few roads like that here where we live, and when some days just get to be too much, I head for them, I turn the Skynyrd up real loud in the van, mash the peddle to the floor and I go into a Dixie state of mind. Now I'm sure someone just laughed out loud at the visualization of that but, a reb in Illinois has gotta to what he has got to do just to keep from goin crazy.........and with me thats a full time chore lol. Anyway, to close let me ask that those of you blessed in life to actually be Southern, NEVER FOR ONE MOMENT TAKE IT FOR GRANTED........for whether ya'll realize it or not, you are in an elite group of the national populace. Ya come from an area filled with an honorable past, (though many here would disagree with that statement), you have great people, the best food and music ever known to man, and the scenery well , even in its most simplistic and plain examples it still has God's country written all over it. Enjoy, be thankful of who you are and where you come from, and where you make your home. It is far better to live in a state in Dixie than to have to live in a Dixie state of mind in yankeeland. Believe me on this one, I am an expert on this matter. With most warm regards to the South and her people,I remain your friend , compatriot, and brother far to the North... T Warren