of Flags and Heritage and Love

My G-GrandFather Adam Rott born in Russia 1884
Immigrated to the Dakota Territories in the US the same year.

I’m going to touch on a topic that may be, well is, politically charged. This is simply my view, you may share it or maybe not, but it is mine none-the-less.

I am for lack of a better phrase, an American Mutt. I am not a “purebred” by any means. My family has been here so long that we predate the conception of the USA. Seriously, I have DAR lineage as does my husband, though technically that would be SAR. For those not in the know, Daughters/Sons of the American Revolution, descendants of patriots and/or soldiers of the American Revolution on the rebelling side. I have Native American heritage as well, obviously also predating. I have generation after generation of immigrants to this country of ours. So much so that I can’t really identify with any of them. Nothing more than stories have been passed down, cool little tidbits like we're descended from Robert the Bruce, one G-G Grandfather could speak 13 languages and was a professor before coming here and another was stoned to death for swimming in a white man's swimming hole, but no important traditions or culture. Just that family is what matters in this world.

My family is a very long list of immigrants. Family matters. So I take great offense when the politicians/or their pundits begin spewing the noxious verbiage that immigrants are what is destroying the fabric of our nation.  EVERY LAST ONE OF US is a product of immigration. Exceptions to any Native who is not of a mixed heritage. You and I are not destroying our country, neither is anyone else looking for a better life.

What could destroy this nation is the notion that left and right aren’t flip sides of the same darn coin. We will rip ourselves apart if we don’t all come to this realization. All this venom has us on the brink of a virtual Civil War. Pointing fingers and blaming each other for the actions of our elected officials and their pundits. 

My family has lived in most parts of this country North and South, and yes when it came time for the American Civil War, they also fought North and South.

My G-G-G-Grandfather wearing his Civil War Confederate uniform in this family photo taken in Mississippi.

Some of my family fought under that Rebel flag, I don’t pretend to know the reasoning it was not a story that was passed down. In fact it was never discussed at all that I’m aware of. I only know of it from my own research. To me, that flag was just a part of history. It meant nothing more than an act of rebellion. In my eyes it stood for nothing more than a final rebellion against authority. Had any family history been passed down in regards to it I might have felt differently about it but that was not the case. My guess is, it wasn't the case for most other folks either.

While I was still researching my ancestry on Ancestry.com I found a record I hadn’t seen before. Spelling variations in this line had made searching an adventure to say the least. I clicked to view it, a Slave record. I thought at first maybe someone in the family had been indentured for some time. Imagine my utter dismay when I discovered it was a recording of my family members ownership of slaves. I was immediately sickened, my stomach was doing flips and tying itself in knots. You can’t own another human being, it goes against everything I know to be true and yet, there it was.  My brain tried to reconcile this, purchasing their freedom so that families could remain together. That’s a noble thing right? Always the optimist and seeing the world through mine own eyes, historically I know the odds of this are slim and it saddens me still.

I live in the South and I am proud to call it home for so many many reasons, but that flag holds no loyalty for me. It never meant more than a last act of rebellion.

Juanita is a friend of my Aunts for as long as I can remember. She has the most gentle voice and she was always just the sweetest person. I didn’t know it at the time but she was the foundation of my beliefs in equality. She wasn’t anything ugly at all,  She was Juanita. A beautiful human with a beautiful soul. How could anyone hate that? How could anyone hate her?

To know that a flag whose meaning to me was simply of rebellion was used to hurt and oppress the likes of Juanita and countless others like her, hurts me. It holds no loyalty for me. Go ahead, return it to history. 

That doesn’t mean I think we should destroy it. To forget the past is to doom ourselves to repeat it. It doesn’t mean I no longer love Gone With the Wind either. It’s still quite the tragic love story. But we learn and we move on, and in the words of Scarlet, we live another day.

Thanks for stopping by and for listening to me ramble on yet again!

See ya next time!

edited to add this post I found on FB, as I believe it bears repeating:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-metta/i-racist_b_7770652.html

Integrity

 Integrity
1: honesty, probity, rectitude, honor, good character, principle(s), ethics, morals, righteousness, morality, virtue, decency, fairness, scrupulousness, sincerity, truthfulness, trustworthiness.
ANTONYMS dishonesty.

You are nothing if not your word. If you cannot be honest in your business dealings, your life dealings then I need to rethink our association.

Harsh words? Maybe. Maybe not.

We’ve worked hard to get where we are. Long hours in all kinds of weather (reminder: bread and butter is construction) in good health and bad. We’ve sacrificed, scrimped, saved, prayed deposits would clear before checks did, and made the conscious decision to remain small when it would have been easy to spend the money and go big. We’ve been self employed for over 30 yrs, we’ve had good years, we’ve had lean years. But in all years we’ve kept our integrity. Do what you say you’re going to do and do not do what you say you won’t. Just be honest and fair.

We’ve worked hard to build this home of ours, we expect people to treat it and the surrounding land with respect and integrity when working around it. Just as we would around theirs. This last few days for example, Entergy (our electric company) has a tree service out trimming the lines. We had a tornado a week or so back and an ice storm a couple months back that caused a couple outages in the area. I told the tree service I understood the need to keep the lines clean, our trees were not an issue but I could see a couple limbs that might become one. I gave permission to trim those branches with the strict admonition not to butcher my trees. 

At first, they were doing as asked, I glanced out the windows every so often and all was good. Right about the time I was convinced they were going to do as promised they started work on a tree right next to my house. So I watched some, then it happened. Instead of selectively pruning back the branches as I had asked and they had promised, they start cutting all the branches within a vertical plane, removing 30-40% of the trees canopy in a matter of minutes just butchering my tree. I could not get out there fast enough to stop it.

I run out there screaming at the top of my lungs - ever try to be heard over a chain saw AND a bucket trucks diesel engine? (My throat still hurts) I’m screaming at him to stop, stomping towards him, I swear I must have looked like a banshee because he stopped and I’m cursing (not my best moment) at the top of my lungs for him to get off my property (that’s putting it really really nicely) I had called the husband on the way out the door, he stopped at the bottom of the driveway told the foreman I was livid and that wasn’t good, they both come up the hill and everything, and I mean everything, cutting and clean up comes to a complete stop.

Can’t glue the branches back. Facepalm. Just don’t lie to me, do what you say you’re going to do. He promised he wouldn’t, and he did it anyway. No integrity.

Now before folks start with they have an easement and they can……. no, they do not. There is no recorded easement for this line. It was placed illegally without consent through the middle of the property. When I realized (I had called the previous owner to find out who to talk to about maintenance- she didn’t know they had even run lines) neither they or the city had an easement, I tried to work with them. Entergy refused to trade an easement for a hook up (they charged me well, wouldn’t even allow us to dig our own trenches and charged us for that too) and then refused to move their line to the property line where it should have been placed, poles already existed, and no one would have had issue with trimming as it was already cleared of all trees. The city provided free hookup to my house, a pump, and replaced the waterline so it was at a proper depth (it was exposed along several spots in my driveway) in exchange for their easement. I am not an unreasonable person, you just can’t walk onto someones property and say I think I’ll just take this slice right here and then pretend you negotiated an easement. It doesn’t even fall under grandfathered as the line isn’t that old. They just took and took some more and continue to take. 

I do have a written agreement with Entergy for a different line that no chemicals will be used on any of my property. Last year they sprayed and killed all my roses, because the little rose bushes along my driveway were an obvious threat to their overhead lines. But the briar, poison oak and sumac that grow much higher are not. There will be lawyers involved before it’s all said and done, of this I’m quite sure. Not that it will do any good, no integrity with these people at all. None.

It’s really sad when the businesses that are supposed to be serving you do nothing but trample you. I think it’s time for solar and/or wind, we have plenty of both up here, for free. Then I just need a really big wall……………. ok maybe the wall’s a bit much. sigh

See ya next time!

I do hope your week started off sweeter than mine.

Dana