Wolfe is wrong.

Contrary to the oh-too-much quoted "you can never go home again," you actually can. What Thomas Wolfe should have said was "you SHOULD never go home again." If you do go, it will just depress you.

In my case, home is the South. Specifically, the three-state region locals call the Ark-La-Tex. A good part of my life was spent between Texarkana and Shreveport, a fairly straight north-south line on the Kansas City Southern tracks. The only good things I recall happening during those years of my infancy to teen was that:

- my Grandfather Lee was a Yellow Dog Democrat fisherman who enjoyed telling stories more than actually catching fish;
- I developed a fondness for baseball and the city of Brooklyn;
- Mickey Mouse Club had Annette;
- The Strand Theatre always had a double feature on Saturdays, and tickets cost 9 cents (and with a pickle and a box of pop corn, my day was made for just a quarter);
- I once met cinema cowboy Rex Allen at the Four States Fair rodeo, and rode his horse (by Lash LaRue still remained my favorite);
- My first dance as a 12-year-old was with Mary Beth Wait, who even today I consider the cutest, best looking girl I have ever seen outside of Linda Ronstadt and my spouse (for a blogger to survive, one must know his readership);
- Wake Village Presbyterian Church had a neat back door so that you could slip out of Sunday School without anyone knowing except your best friends Bruce Summers and Jimmy Green who would accompany you back into the pine woods for a smoke;
- My mother excused me from Wednesday night's traditional liver and onions (I had pinto beans and cornbread instead);
- My grandmother Lee's cookie dough, and she never insisted that I had to wait until the dough was backed into cookies before it could be eaten. She predated the now common understanding that cookie dough is far better than a cookie can ever be.

All in all, that's not too bad a time in Texarkana-Shreveport, particularly in the case with Mary Beth Wait. But my list of bad things unfortunately would take up too much internet space, and others might one day want to write.

Suffice it to say, the race question has only marginally improved, the once Solid South is now solid for the GOP rather than the Democrats, and illiteracy seems to be a badge of honor one holds dearly rather than being chagrined.

Actually, the word chagrin does not exist in the South. But that's a topic for a future essay.

So much for the digression. My father's final days keeps drawing me back and it will until the end comes, but I assure you, after that, I am free.

The place truly depresses me. Hardly a car goes by without a yellow ribbon sticker claiming the occupants support our troops, or God, or our president, or sometimes all three. The only other most prevalent bumper sticker outside of Bush-Chaney is the one proclaiming that only the slow arrival of the Rapture is preventing that specific car from careening into approaching traffic driverless.

There is something about the deep South that makes those who live there become idiots. I don't think it's the water. And certainly not the deepfried catfish and hushpuppies. But whatever the cause, it makes them want to say idiotic things like "liberals have killed this great country," or "anytime you get a bunch of coloreds together, you are going to have a fight or something worse." Yes, coloreds still seems the most prevalent description of Afro-americans, though Indians (the subcontinent version), Hispanics and arabic people also seem to fall occasionally into the territory.

Actually, regarding arabic and Indians, that is not totally true. The word "terrorist" seems to crop up more often. Seriously folks, I'm not making this up. FOX Network and the Bush Administration has managed to build the fear in places you would never believe would have fear. In Shreveport, the local newspaper had two stories on the front page in which "terrorists" was in the headline, and neither of them had anything to do with Iraq or Islamic insurgency. One was "domestic terrorists" - a husband-wife bank robbing tandem. The other was a man who threatened to blow up a neighbor's house because they were feuding over ownership of a fence. The sheriff called him a "terrorist who had to be taken off the streets."

My father's spouse told me that they were very suspicious about a Pakistani family who lived next door. "We're told that they have infilitrated everywhere, so it makes sense to be suspicious," she told me. I assume Fox Network told her, though I wouldn't put it past Cheney to have made a private call to her. Because of my father's illness, they are moving away and into a condo. I don't know who will keep track of that suspicious, dark-shinned neighbor now. I will lose sleep over it, I am sure.

Where is this blog going? Frankly, I don't know, though I think the moral to the story is that we are in deep shit trouble when Americans believe their neighbors might be "terrorists" because of the color of their skin and accent. We are in deep shit trouble when a vast number of church pulpits are being used to promote a president who is troubled by "humanist liberals." We are in deep shit trouble when my niece cannot read any fantasy books - including Alice in Wonderland - or enjoy a Halloween night because her mom and my brother think "popular" culture promotes anti-Christian ideal and heathen concepts. We are in deep shit trouble when people think Fox is actually "fair and balanced."

These trips south have to stop. They totally depress me. Though I still like going out for deep fried catfish and hushpuppies.