While we never had to worry about insurrections instigated by the president who clearly lost the election to take over Washington and stop the democratic election process on which the nation was founded, we had other important fish to fry to protect our country in the days of my youth. Growing up southern was not a piece of cake, and civic duty was always calling us to save our town from enemies — both foreign and domestic. In the 1950’s, for example, in the prime of my teenage years, I would serve as a capricious cadet on the local Civil Air Patrol to stand watch against the invasion of Soviet aircraft. It was also a time when the sovereign state of Mississippi, realizing that it might not have won the Civil War, had launched a “be kind to Yankees” offensive.
As the Cold War heated up after Sputnik had been launched into the heavens above us, people lived in the dreadful anticipation of an all-out nuclear war with the Ruskies. Folks in our town started digging into their backyards and constructing bomb shelters against that dreaded day. They stocked canned goods and water and ammunition enough for their own household, leaving the rest of us as sitting targets.
Southern communities like ours formed Civil Air Patrols to watch for that fearful moment when the enemy air force would be invading our sacred southern air space. All hands were needed to man the observation tower located just behind the library and tennis courts. Before we climbed up the ladder into the wooden tower, we had extensive training in identifying the USSR Migs in order to distinguish them from the crop dusters that kept our cotton free from boll weevils. I have no earthly idea how many hours I stood guard, but at the end of my watch I was happy to report that not one Russian bomb was dropped on Canton.
While anticipating a cold war from some alien enemy half a world away, things were warming up from our “recent unpleasantness” with those people north of the Mason-Dixon. Rumor had it that if they would give us back our silver, we’d forget the whole thing. During Southern Hospitality Week, Yankees were intentionally targeted at our roadblock set just north of town on U.S. Highway 51, which ran from Lake Superior through Memphis to New Orleans. Boy Scout troops were pressed into active duty in this captivating enterprise. As south bound cars entered the boulevard into town, anyone from out of state would be flagged and in three blocks pulled to the side of the road by law enforcement officials who would invite them to the nearby faux antebellum hospitality booth where southern belles in hoop skirts would serve them refreshments. This charm offensive seemed to work, and no one ridiculed our dialects and drawls or the pulchritude of our Dixie darlings.
Somewhere between last month’s open siege on our Capitol itself from the enemy within our borders and the welcoming comforts of down home hospitality, there’s hope for ample grace to keep us alive long enough to pass the peace to a new generation of capricious teenagers who will search their skies for migrating Canadian geese rather than bombers and open their minds and hearts and voices with a great big “welcome y”all” that’s wide enough to invite everybody into what President Reagan had called these United States in his farewell address: “the shining city upon a hill… open to any one with the will and the heart to get here.”