Just this past Sunday I found myself weighing yet again into the fray, frothing at the mouth, and waving my "Sherman's March to Sea" T-shirt. What fray was that? Ah yes the Civil War. Yes it was finished almost 150 years ago, but get two even weakly Southern individuals together and suddenly the South rises again. My Yankee self can take a half hour of this talk being uttered in my dining room, but then the gorge rises, which always shocks Southerners because on this topic they usually have very limited imaginations. (They also say the most absurd things. "If you wore that shirt in South Carolina, you would get your ass kicked," said one. "Well you wouldn't because you're a lady (said with extreme doubt that was) but if you were a guy, you'd get your ass kicked." It never occurred to them that I wouldn't wear it in the South because I am a lady and don't believe in rubbing victory in the face of the defeated, the "ass kicking" has already been administered as it were.)

But occassionally there are surprises, which is why I am looking forward to reading the biography of Ulysses S. Grant written by Josiah Bunting III, the former superintendent of ( as well as an alum of) the Virginia Military Institute, the keeper of the Stonewall Jackson flame. Apparently Bunting thinks well of Grant. It's a good thing he's retired and apparently living in Rhode Island.

Meanwhile a Greek professor is suited up for a fray as well. Just an earlier one.