good talk

Something has been awry on the dating of my Blogs lately, hopefully this will change soon. Last night I saw "Rudy" on TV which was based on the life of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger who played football at Notre Dame. I saw "Rudy" in a theater when it first came out in the early 90's, a really good wholesome movie with hardly any bad language and no sex. I'm a big fan of minor league pro sports, say around 1970 I went with a couple guys to see the "Akron Vulcans," a minor league pro football team, I saw 3 games before they folded at Mid-Season. They'd have pictures in their Program of guys who had been cut. Hey, it was good enough for me. About 10 years ago I was at a minor league pro basketball game here in Las Vegas and at halftime they had Rudy Ruettiger, who had become a Motivational Speaker, giving a 20 Minute Abbreviated Talk that would fit into a Basketball Halftime. It was "Follow Your Dreams," it was pretty good, I recommend Rudy if you need someone to speak to your Group. On the "History Channel" yesterday they were giving biographies of the Presidents, I'm supposed to be descended from a brother of James K. Polk who had no children. Polk is regarded as about the best of the one-term Presidents, indeed he died the year after his term ended in 1849. Polk saw successful prosecution of the War with Mexico and the taking of their land (they weren't doing much with it) and the settlement with England over the Northwest. Polk was the oldest of 10 children and there would be hundreds of his Indirect Descendants, in 1991 they dug up Zachary Taylor to see if he had been poisoned and around this time there was a lot of famous people having their bodies exhumed and I was wondering if they were going to ask me if it was allright to dig up Unk, wherever he's at. In the Louisiana Legislature one speaker said, ".....This digging up of Folks has got to stop....." No kidding. I had a great-great Grandfather, a Polk from Polk County Tennessee, who was a Rebel during the Civil War and spent time in a Prisoner-of-War Camp, these were dreadful places in both the North and South (I've been to Andersonville). Indeed my Aunt Sue in Georgia's dachsund was named "Rebel." I was 2 and I remember Rebel well, my Mother said I'd be saying "Webel, Webel," I guess I had a problem with my R's. Whereas Gramps fought for the South his brother fought for the North. Baseball first gained popularity as a Rural Southern Game, they learned it in Prisoner-of War Camps. When my one great Grandmother was a little girl she had to leave Atlanta abruptly with her parents because Sherman was burning it. I guess they returned once everything had cooled off, her daughter, my Grandmother was from Atlanta. Sherman had been with Grant on his Vicksburg Campaign and had seen the devastating effect on the population after having almost all the food they had taken from them. In this instance it had become necessary after the Northern Supplies had been almost wiped out after the successful Raids of Mark Van Dorn (shot to death in his tent soon thereafter by a jealous husband) and Nathan Bedford Forrest ("I got there Firstest with the Mostest"). During his Georgia Campaign Sherman said "These People are never going to like us, the only Way to Beat Them is to make War Terrible for Them, to make Them Fear Us." Things turned out well in the end, this Country was getting into Modern Times and Owning these People and Sending Them Out to Pick this Stupid Cotton was obviously Something that had to go. What brought the Civil War to a head was the Feeling in the North that the South had had its Way for Too Long.