Prodigals Return

After being out of the South for too many years, I returned and eager to catch up and make new connections. I’ve met many fine people with family who’ve been here since the beginning. They are middle aged and older and almost all operate farms full time. They are everything you like about rural life and its people.

But I’ve also been heartbroken to see how degraded so many native Southerners have become. Physically and intellectually, many are not impressive. Culturally, and especially young people, they are barely different from anyone else in the United States. Their allegiances, taste, mettle, and effete mannerisms cue from a screen culture controlled by malevolent degenerates that openly mock their heritage and dignity. Even in rural areas, there is the real threat that these people, so malformed by the anti-culture, will soon outnumber the farmers. The temptation to flee the area is also a big part of this. 

We get at least one post card a month offering to buy our place with the promise that it won’t be turned into a subdivision (a lie). These postcards are not local. Since we’ve been back, on our one rural road alone, four properties (I estimate cumulatively to be about 300 acres) have sold. I know the background on two of these and the kids simply didn’t want to “live in nowhere.”  

The good news is that while it is deeply regrettable that these old farms, that have been in families for generations, are being sold off, many are being bought by what long-time Southerners need to accept as not only their new neighbors, but good people. While they have been Americanized, they are quickly embracing what the South stood for and what they want to see it stand for again. 

In meeting many of these new people, I was also surprised by something I had not expected at all. Many are all sons of the Confederacy.

The Prodigals

Here’s who is buying a lot of these larger properties. 

A man with an Italian surname who was raised in the far Northwest, he’s a forty-something and a retired executive now homesteading with his big family. On his mother’s side he has relatives who fought for the CSA and there’s a rather significant city in Dixie that bears the family name.  

Another is from the Midwest, mid-30s and able to work remotely for a parent company out of Texas. They are a big family in their third year here and this year they will be entirely protein and dairy independent and probably more than halfway there with veggies. On his side they know of at least one CSA soldier and there is a family farm in West Tennessee they are also trying to buy back. 

There is a just retired career soldier and a slightly intimidating man raised in California. He and his family are on 100 acres just north of the Alabama line. Also, well on their way to food independence, he has a relative who was calvary and rode with Forrest, as well as other relatives who were part of the civilian guerrilla fighting in middle Tennessee. 

The final man is from Miami and a former Fed about which he won’t say more. His paternal side is from Madrid and he’s swarthy dark with steel blue eyes and looks like a male model. His mother’s side has men who fought for the South though and he too has come home to raise their growing family on yet another of the rural farms that are being sold off by a generation who are clueless about the treasure they’re letting go. 

Not one of these people have a good Southern twang, but their kids sure will and like my own, they can tell you details about every major and most minor battles during the War of Northern Aggression (no Civil War nuance in these houses). They know shot placement on deer and how hogs and cows will be judged at auction. And whether they are eight or 18, they comfortably use “Sir” and “Ma’am” in conversation. They also don’t drink Mountain Dew, eat from Dollar Stores, emulate urban black culture, and would rather walk than ride in a truck with a Carolina Squat.  

These families returning have the potential to be the much-needed salt in a South becoming dangerously bland.

Make the Olds Great Again

In their homes, Romans used to have wax masks of their ancestors with a plaque documenting who they were and what they did. Veneration and simple remembrance of ancestors was once common in cultures around the world for what should be obvious reasons. It is not incidental that customs like these are always targeted by the enemy. 

Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the destruction of the Four Olds (Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits) was intended to kill the soul of the people so the new ideas, culture, customs and habits could be implanted. Even old furniture handed down through generations was removed and burned. Maoist strategy has been refined and too many welcome the death of the old to make way for the new. 

But as so many have told me who are coming back to their even distant Southern roots, there is something much deeper than we understand about the desire and allure of the Old. 

Let’s not lose sight of the South’s Four Olds. It’s not too late to resurrect them in your family and in the community. Support them. Venerate them. Your new neighbors are willing and ready to join the fight and may even be leading the way.