I'm in Virginia staying with my friend Chris and her family for a long weekend. The house in which I am sleeping features three stories, seven bedrooms, six bathrooms, a greenhouse, a guesthouse, a freestanding garage, and a floor buzzer in the dining room to call the servants to clear. There are no servants, now, but at one time there were. It's lovely. Lovely and gargantuan.
I must go to bed, for tomorrow is a full day with many adventures planned. I will undoubtedly write of many of them in the next few days. I will, however, leave you with this general impression. I have become increasingly aware of being in the South. The Old South.
There's a sort of breezy racism that is spoken of with winning smiles and polite tones and there is an actual bitterness that persists about losing the American Civil War almost 150 years ago.
Tonight for example, I was given a short but pleasant driving tour of the city. "Here's a lovely view of the river," the driver said. "And look at those shops, aren't they darling? To the left, the State capital and the Governer's Mansion. The grandstands are for the inaguration. It's tomorrow.
"And look at those beautiful, stately old houses on the hill. They're all Antebelum, of course. We burned most of the city when the goddamn Yankees came. We didn't want the goddamn Yankees to have anything so we burned it. That's practically the only bit that survived the burning when the goddamn Yankees came." The driver leaned out the window and spat. She raised a fist and yelled "Goddamn Yankees!" into the night air.
I tried to pretend it was normal.
Posted at 2:00 a.m.
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