Some more previous thoughts.

It's not my fault where I was born.

Really, it's not. I didn't have any say in it whatsoever. Can I help it that my folks were living outside Philadelphia in 1972?

Everyone has their particular cross to bear, and this one is mine: I was born north of the Mason-Dixon line. In New Jersey of all places. Can you believe that? Life simply is NOT fair. How is it that I, Tim Perkins, student of history and firm Southern apologist, had to be born outside this promised land, this blessed South? I haven't the foggiest.

Thankfully, it's not as bad as it sounds; it's not like I'm some sort of full-blooded, liberal Yankee. Both of my parents come from strong, salt- of-the-earth, Southern stock. My father's family comes from Arkansas, and before that Georgia (we think), and my mother's roots extend back into Virginia for as far back as anybody can remember. Their family history typifies the type of Southerner who filled the Confederate ranks in the Late Unpleasantness; small yeoman farmers who marched off to war, not to defend some rich planter's right to own slaves, but to drive off the invader who was trampling his crops, stealing his cattle, and burning his home. My family history is that of hardy folk who lived simple lives and asked merely to be let alone.

And my upbringing can't be questioned, either; since before I was two years old, I've been reared an Alabamian. Grown up in the Heart of Dixie; not just the South, but the deep South, where deer meat is one of the basic food groups and winter is an afterthought.

So why this unfortunate circumstance, namely, my birth upon foreign soil? Sigh. I have no idea. God's plan to keep me humble, I suppose (as if I didn't have reason enough already).

Like I said, my cross to bear. But if you call me a Yankee, well then, sir, I shall demand satisfaction upon the field of honor!