William Faulkner's best-known observation about the inseparability of past and present in the South is "The past is never dead. It's not even past." The Ol' Bloviator, however, is partial to "It's all now, you see. Yesterday won't be over until Tomorrow and Tomorrow began 10,000 years ago." 10,000? How about 85,000,000 or so, Mr. Bill? As a simple-minded sort, the OB loves graphics and maps whose significance just jumps out and grabs you. For example, a while back, he ran across an intriguing mash up of maps beginning with this one which, give or take a day or two, shows the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts as they existed about 85 million years ago, during what they call the "Cretaceous" period.
The light blue area represents a warm tropical sea teeming with all sorts of aquatic life that was deposited along what was then its coastline. This extremely rich organic detritus made for superbly enriched, dark soil once the waters receded, and many millions of years later, the contours of this ancient coastline would constitute the southern "Black Belt," where the rich, black earth would prove an excellent place to grow. . . . GUESS WHAT?
If you said "cotton," please proceed. If you didn't, I'd suggest shutting down the computer before you hurt yourself or someone else and grabbing either a comic book or the Auburn alumni magazine. The following map shows the concentration of heaviest cotton production in 1860? Notice anything?
Since it was the South and it was1860, then this map was also a proximate representation of the heaviest concentration of slaves at that point. OK, let's ease on ahead about 128 years and gaze upon this map, which superimposes the cotton-production map on one showing the highest percentages of the vote received in the South by one Barry Obama in 2008.
The OB wishes he was more proficient at using Photoshop, which
makes splitting the atom seem positively
mundane by comparison, but he ain't; so the best he can do is this combo.
If you think southern history is the least bit lacking in irony, consider that the counties with the highest cotton production in 1860 were home not just to the most concentrated slave populations but to the largest slaveholders as well. Thus, as accreted over a gazillion centuries, nature's endowments helped to populate a distinct swathe of the South with the people most vigorous in the defense of slavery in 1860 and those with the greatest enthusiasm for electing a black president in 2008.
Never one to pass on the chance to write something quotable about his native region, Faulkner also has an uncomprehending Canadian say, "Jesus, the South is fine, isn't it. It's better than the theatre, isn't it. It's better than Ben Hur.. . . ." Better than "Ben Hur"? My Aunt Bessie's bloomers! It's better than "Animal House." Take this report, for example, which was sent along by the OB's friend Hardy, courtesy of his friend Joe over in Luverne, Alabama, where they are gearing up for the "World's Largest Peanut Boil" (17 tons worth) on the first weekend of September. At any rate, it seems there was a bit of a ruckus at a Wal-Mart over in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, last week as detailed in this account regarding one Mr. Travis Keen, who was arrested after a witness reported to police that a man driving a Ford Taurus drove past him "with his penis exposed." When Officer Colby Spillers confronted him, Keen reportedly "stated he did have his penis out because of past experiences he had at Wal-Mart. Keen stated when he comes to Wal-Mart he gets aroused."
Normally, the OB wouldn't touch this one with (ahem) a
ten-foot pole, but the fact that Mr. Keen had no record of prior transgressions
of any sort gave him pause. Mind you, the
OB is not looking to defend weenie-waggling of any sort, be the waggler in
question a Congressman or a humble troller
of Wal-Mart parking lots. Still, having
seen some fairly peculiar things at Wal-Mart himself and realizing that to some
folks, there is a fairly thin line between "erotica" and just plain "rotica,"
it struck him that Mr. Keen's case might indeed offer some extenuating
circumstances. Eventually, his rage
for justice for Travis Keen led the OB to
this site,
thanks to which he may now rest his case that, given the visual stimuli
afforded by a typical trip to Wal-Mart, our man Travis was probably not acting
totally without provocation. Here, for
example, is "Exhibit A," which might
also be labeled "I see London, I see France. . . ."
Making no presumption about Mr. Keen's sexual preference,
the OB covers that base with "Exhibit B," who seems himself to be signaling that getting at least to
second base will be "no problemo."
Finally, not ruling out the possibility that the defendant might have been under the insidious influence of a fruit fetish, courtesy of the Produce Aisle, here's Exhibit C.
At the risk of taking things one Faulknerism too far, our man Willy F. also observed through one of his characters that northerners are susceptible to an "almost helpless capacity and eagerness to believe anything about the South not even provided it be derogatory but merely bizarre enough and strange enough." In all fairness, much like the aforementioned Mr. Keen, Yankees have not acted entirely without provocation in forming these stereotypes, but what the heck, as Roy Blount, Jr., another astute observer of our people points out, we southerners just seem "to get a kick out of being typical."
