From Gene’s Notebook

…another moment on the west bank of the Mississippi in eastern Missouri, fields around bursting with soybeans, trees around with peaches and apples, fields with corn

…the bank clerk is angry, angry that I spoke Spanish to a South Texas visitor in the line, angry that we said some kind things about Barack Obama, but this is not about crops, geography, the election ….

Outside the bank, Travelers Check uncashed
Debit card time,
The South Texan introduces me to a 93-year old
Former Air Force pilot, who grew up part of his
Life in Raymondville, did his training in Harlingen …
And the former pilot lets me know that he no longer
Talks planes, instead it is local history, specifically of
Palmyra, Missouri, where the North early in the Civil War killed Southern prisoners - Missouri - the bloodiest of all the Civil War states, brother versus brother, northern part of the state non-slave, the southern slave, and kill, burn, rob, and kill, burn and
Rob more ….

The 93-year old knows his Palmyra history and he has
The South Texan and me wrapped in his clear words …and then he says,

“I flew the boys to Vietnam,
And then I flew plenty back,
The metal coffins rattling in the
Plane’s engines.

“But that was in the 1960s,
Want to go and learn more
About the early Civil War?”

I decline; the South Texan goes;
The bank clerk stares out the window,
And the bank looks like one of those
Brick ones often-robbed in Westerns ….