It’s interesting to see how history is changed over time. Well, perhaps not so much changed as reinvented. A recent visit to Charleston made me more aware of this.

Charleston is a great city to walk in and there is a definite feel of visiting a foreign country when you see the centuries-old churches and homes, so beautifully cared for by several generations of citizens.

This time I decided to go out to Fort Sumter and tour it, something I’d never done in previous visits. I’d already noticed that our hotel had a large and varied collection of visitors from other countries. The first morning in the lobby over coffee I met a family from Worcestershire, England, who were touring the south. One lady was from France and spoke perfect English. Another couple couldn’t speak English other than to say “good morning.” I don’t know where they were from. But they all came to Charleston.

The English family had been to Memphis to walk Beale Street and saw where Martin Luther King was assassinated. They’d gone to Nashville and walked down Broadway, gone to the Grand Ole Opry and seen the Parthenon. They’d gone to Atlanta primarily to visit Margaret Mitchell’s home. They had visited Boston and walked the Freedom Trail. They’d spent three days in Charleston and were going on to Savannah. They’d read “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” numerous times and wanted to see another city in the South that had not been burned during the Civil War.

It was amazing to see how knowledgeable they were about American history, and their fascination with the South intrigued me. As I was the only southerner in the lobby and the only South Carolinian, it became apparent they viewed me as a source of information and referred to me as “an authentic Southern Belle.”

I felt a real responsibility to hold up my end and represent the region in a positive way, which I did to the best of my ability. It helped that I was dressed in a long cotton sundress and had on a hat in preparation for the morning’s walk.

When I joined the Fort Sumter assortment of tourists on the ferry, there was a young family of Japanese tourists, a large multi-generational family from France, a group of Scandinavians, an Italian family and several English families.

There were also people from the Midwest and the Northeast.

I overheard snippets of conversation in a mix of other languages.

Then came the tour of the fort.

It is very true that the victors of war get to write the history of events. For the most part, the narrative was pretty accurate but the park ranger had a carefully edited script.

This was brought into perspective for me when a 12-year-old from Illinois said to his father, following the presentation, “See, Dad, the good guys always win.”

This took me aback. That’s a nice way of saying I was mad as fire.

Every one of my male ancestors fought in that war. They came home — those who survived — to a land that had been completely destroyed.

This was the first war in modern history that was waged against civilians. And the scorched-earth policy put into practice by Sherman left scars on the southern soul, some of which are still waiting to be healed.

The history I grew up with was told by a people who had lived it and somehow survived it.

It was a war that should have never happened, and if the finger of blame is pointed, no entity would be without guilt.

We can even go so far as to say that the New Englanders who amassed fortunes from bringing captured West Africans to this country and selling them like cattle in the market were the worst offenders. That’s where it all began. And they only decided slavery was wrong after there was no longer an economic need for slavery in the north. It was no longer profitable, so they felt free to moralize.

Funny how that profit margin is so important.

Slavery was wrong. It was always wrong and is still going on in various parts of the world. But killing civilians, starving women and children, stealing everything that isn’t nailed down, driving off stock, burning homes and churches and pulling up the sweet potatoes out of the field is wrong too. Torturing a slave for information about where the hams are hidden is wrong. Raping women is wrong.

And grinding an entire part of the country into abject poverty leaves a legacy of bitterness among the descendants of those who suffered such indignities.

After World War II, European countries were rebuilt. Japan was rebuilt. Debts were forgiven, and the conquerors were merciful to the survivors.

The Civil War ended more than a century ago. How different our world would be if the policies enacted during Reconstruction had never been implemented.

So, little boy from Illinois, who were the good guys?

Brothers and sisters in arms

Dear Editor,

Since my last letter, when I was “confused,” I have bought a modern computer and started some research and fact finding. As far as I have gone, it gets more interesting.

Here goes…

Confederate soldiers, sailors and marines who fought in the Civil War were made U.S. veterans by an act of the United States Congress in 1957 — U.S. public law 85-425, section 410 was approved May 23, 1958.

This made all Confederate Army, Navy and Marine veterans equal to U.S. veterans. Additionally, under U.S. public law 810, approved by the 17th U.S. Congress on Feb. 26, 1929, the War Department was directed to erect headstones and recognize Confederate grave sites as U.S. war grave sites.

Just for the record, the last Confederate veteran died in the 1950s. So in essence, when you remove a Confederate statue, monument or headstone, you are in fact removing a statue, monument or headstone of a U.S. veteran, and as a disabled veteran myself, all veterans are brothers. It doesn’t matter if we are red, yellow, black, white, green or purple.

Now, the definition of monument is “a structure made to keep alive the memory of a person or event.” So the way I read this is nobody in South Carolina had the right to vote or otherwise remove the Confederate flag. I always thought there was the federal government, state, county and city, in that order.

Well, I haven’t found where the federal government has changed these laws. The bad part is the ones who break these laws are felons according to the facts so far. Felonies are punishable by no less than one year in prison and as much as death.

If convicted, you are not allowed to hold public office or even vote or possess a gun or a passport.

So if prosecuted, we would have no governor and very few senators or members of the House, because by rights and laws they broke them by taking and voting to take the flag down and dig up the pole and concrete.

Most of them have never been in service or a war zone. Maybe they all need to be sent to one and dodge a few bullets and become a veteran, along with all these people who want to march about everything. It would give them a reason to believe in their heritage, freedom and rights. I think there would be a whole lot of changes going on about their fellow mankind.

A lot of our past presidents fought in service, but nowadays they just sit in Washington and say “go get ‘em.”

A lot has changed since Vietnam — nowadays the girls fight right alongside the boys. So now as veterans, we are not only brothers, but sisters, too.

Troy Black

Central

Day of shame

Dear Editor

This is in response to Senator Larry Martin’s article in the Courier regarding the Confederate flag. It was very well written. The only problem is Larry and all the other people who voted against the flag are wrong. Larry knows this, and he caved to the[cointent_lockedcontent]

A state of confusion

Dear Editor,

I really liked the letter last week that Gladys Lewis Pace Corcoran wrote about our heritage, the Confederacy and the removal of the flag from the Statehouse. They were facts from our history and not fictional. Like she said, people need to break out the history books and get the facts instead of hearsay.

The second day after the talks started, Fox Carolina did a survey on what the public thought about the removal of the flag from the Statehouse. After it finished, 65 percent said to leave it, 33 percent said to take it down and 2 percent were undecided.

Then our supposed-to-be politicians we voted into office voted against the people’s choice in this area to take it down. Now, am I and a lot of other voters wrong for thinking they are supposed to vote with us and not against us? I thought it was for the people, with the people and by the people.

Now, I know the governor doesn’t know any better because she wasn’t born and raised here, so she could care less about our heritage.

One of the senators even thumped the Bible a little about love, but it wasn’t about love or hate. That was all about one idiot who had been planning such an act for quite a while, along with the system failing and letting him buy a gun.

The people of this county and state better get off their duffs and get some laws changed where if these senators and congressmen go against the people, they can be kicked out without an election. Get out, people, and vote them out of office. It only takes a few minutes of your time and it is easy.

Then there are these stores that refuse to even sell that flag anymore. They still sell rolling papers for dope, wine and beer and a lot of other stuff to break the law with. It’s getting to where they are saying what you can and cannot have in a free country. That is communism.

Then there is the NAACP, which was just looking for another excuse to jump in and make things worse. It was bad enough that the nine people died, but they need another excuse for another uprising. That brought out the white-sheet people to make things even worse.

You know, the Indians were the true Americans, and because of their uprisings they were put on reservations.

Now the NAACP wants the name changed on a school in the Upstate that also had nothing to do with what happened in Charleston either. If they can get our politicians to vote with them on that, then what is their next project? We already know they are not going to stop.

Do we need to start getting a lot of reservations ready?

I am just confused!

Troy Black

Central

In 1963, a song was released by The Kingsmen titled “Louie, Louie.” It was a huge hit and completely unaffected by the fact that the song lyrics were indecipherable.

They were so indecipherable that an investigation was launched by none other than the FBI to determine if the lyrics were obscene and/or profane.

After almost two years, during which time the FBI spent countless hours listening to

It began innocently enough. We thought it would be fun to take the children to play putt-putt at the beach. After all, this is a family custom dating back to the days when putt-putt at the beach was pretty plain and simple.

In those days we stayed at Crescent Beach, pre-high-rise, and came off the beach at 11 a.m. when our mothers said the midday hours from 11-2 were when the sun was too hot for us to be out there.

So, we’d come in, change into clothes, put on our hats and walk a block or two down to the one putt-putt course next-door to White’s Realty. There were 18 holes, no large animals or any kind of theme involved in the game, just plain green carpet on top of concrete. If you got a hole in one on the 18th hole, you earned a free game.

Well, last week we loaded everyone into the cars (it took two for our crowd) and drove

It’s early in the morning, and I hear a thumping on my bedroom window. I am guessing somehow somebody has left for the morning and locked themselves outdoors. Groggily, I get out of bed and stumble out my bedroom door and go open the living room door to let that person in.

And I find nobody there. Our dogs, Patti and Opie, glance over at me with that look that says, “What is that fool doing up in the middle of the night?”

All the cars are there in the driveway. I briefly toy with the idea that someone was once there, but I realize the odds of the dogs, who bark when I drive up, would

Sick of the status quo

Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to Greenville and Anderson counties. If either one of them are interested in annexing Pickens County, I will be one of the first to sign up.

When we go to our county seat for any sort of record, we are told to go to Anderson or Greenville. I recently went to get a birth certificate and was told they were no longer available here, and the reason was they did not want to pay a full-time clerk to issue

Heritage, not hate. Those are the words we’ve seen countless times on bumper stickers in defense of the Confederate flag.

As a proud Southerner who counts Confederate veterans on both sides of my family, I have pretty much embraced the same mindset. That was the idea behind moving the Confederate flag to the Soldiers Monument 15 years ago. The flag became part of the monument, or so we thought.

It became evident to me that others in our state continued to see the flag on the Statehouse grounds much differently less than 36 hours after our collective hearts were broken over the senseless murder of nine innocent people at the Emanuel AME Church. The church killer had also left a witness to let the world know why he had

Since the string of shark attacks along the coastline, there has been a great deal of anxiety about being eaten while on vacation.

Everyone deals with this in a different way. We are at Holden Beach with our extended family, and here’s how we’re addressing the problem.

We have a good pair of binoculars, and whoever has water duty uses them religiously, scanning the water from left to right while the second person is in the water with the