ELVIS and the War of Northern Aggression

Thirty years ago today, a poor white kid from Tupelo, MS died in Memphis, Tennessee and crossed from superstar to immortal. This past weekend, Elvis week started in Memphis when tens of thousands of fans and tourists poured into Memphis to be part of something bigger than themselves. One of those tourists was my buddy Nam from New York City. He isn’t a huge fan of Elvis but happened to be driving through on the busiest week of the year. As a guest of mine in Arkansas, he was destined for a good time. I decided to show him what Arkansas was really made of. I had help from the 106 degree weather. The first thing on my agenda was to let this northerner, who had never seen a gun up close, be Rambo for a day.

Nam and I, along with some of my closest friends, unloaded every gun cabinet we had to entertain this man. We fired every type of handheld firearm you could imagine, blowing the daylights out of small defenseless cardboard targets.

It was somewhere in the middle of the first hour of shooting when I realized that if the Civil War, or as we in the south like to call it “The War of Northern Aggression”, were held today, things might be different.

But even if we didn’t win on the grounds of owning more firearms, I’ll bet southerners could dig a ‘friendship’ ditch faster than northerners could discuss it and argue about what’s legal.

And it hit me too, that every president since Kennedy (excluding the two from California and the one that wasn’t elected.) have been southerners.

As my Yankee friend can testify too, Southern pride is alive and in full force.

Long live the King.