481 CHRONICLESnty, not men of hate; and men ofnbreadth of spirit and understanding,nnot men who preach meanness andnmisunderstanding.nTo the extent that both Indian andnwhite have denied one another thenstatus of responsible humans, bothnhave demeaned the repubHcan ideal.nTo the extent that hatred and war havenprevailed, we have belittled the idealsnand concepts of the Founding Fathers—nand desecrated our own humanity.nEvery blow, physical and verbal,nred and white, has diminished usnand damaged the fabric of ourselves.nTo continue a system of special privilegenbased on the sins real and imaginednof the past three centuries — andnthe sins are on both sides of the racialnbarrier — is to continue the Indiannwars into an indefinite future.nThe great chief of the Sioux, CrazynHorse, might well have been addressingntoday’s problems when he stated,n”The war will end when the Indian isntreated as every other American.”nOdie Faulk is author of Arizona: AnShort History (University of OklahomanPress) and of other standard volumesnof Southwestern history.nLetter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednStill Fighting the Civil WarnThe influx of Northern migrants tonthese parts continues to produce misunderstanding.nSome time ago, the goodnpeople of Hillsborough, North Carolina,ngave up their right to shoot maraudingnvermin in their own backyards to annofficial municipal squirrel-shooter. Citizensnwhose nut trees were being sacked,ngardens despoiled, or houses chewed upn(it happens) could call police officernWilliam King, who would come overnwith his .22 and take care of the problem.nNow, according to the Chapel HillnObserver, a pushy newcomer has objectednto this arrangement. “This isnjust pagan, to be out there shootingnsquirrels,” says Karen McKinnon. LastnNovember, she took her case to thentown council, which responded bynhedging the practice about with bureaucraticnrestrictions. Owners of allnadjoining property must now be notifiednbefore a squirrel is shot, and thenperson requesting the shooting mustnbe given a leaflet describing nonlethalnmethods of squirrel-removal. Am I thenonly one who finds it weird that it’snharder to kill a squirrel than to get annabortion?nMs. McKinnon believes that thenlong-term solution may lie in importingnowls to control the squirrel population,nbut it’s not clear why that’s preferable.nI think if I were a squirrel I’dnprefer a .22 slug in the eye to beingntorn limb from limb by an owl. In fact,nI’d prefer it even though I’m not ansquirrel. Moreover, I don’t understandnwhy an owl is seen as a natural predatornand Officer King is not. But then,nlike most natives, I don’t share Ms.nMcKinnon’s Disneyesque view of rodents.nHillsborough resident CecilnSanford, brother of our lesser-knownnU.S. senator, quoted a farmer friendnon the subject of squirrels: “They ain’tnnothing but a rat with a bushy tail.”nMy solution would be to kill twonbirds with one stone (as the pagannexpression has it): I’d arm welfare recipientsnand encourage them to forage.nThey could eat what they shoot, or sellnit. Squirrel-based Brunswick stew isn$7.00 a bowl at one fancy Chapel Hillnrestaurant.nH< * *nThat story illustrates a problem Inhave, living where I do. I don’t want tonleave the South, and don’t plan to, butnI’m afraid it’s leaving me. Let menexplain.nThere’s a letter from Robert Frost innwhich he tells a friend of his plans tonmove back to New England and getn”Yankier and Yankier.” That’s justnabout what he did, too, and most of usnare glad of it. America’s a better placenbecause he did that.nTwenty-odd years ago, living innNew York City, my wife and I came tona similar resolve about the South. Unlikenpoor, tormented Tom Wolfe (thenElder), we knew we could go homenagain. We did it a couple of times anyear, and we wanted to do it for good.nNew York’s a great city, but — well, Injust had a letter from one of my formernstudents who says she’s had enough,ntoo: “It’s definitely not a good place forndecent, polite Southerners, not evennnnhigh-strung ones like myself”nBut living in the North had changednmy idea of where “home” was. I’dncome to realize that I could find balmnfor my Yankee-jangled sensibilities notnjust in my particular East Tennesseenhometown, but ‘most anywhere in thenSouth. Driving home, my chronicnheartburn always let up somewherenaround Hagerstown, Maryland, on oldnU.S. 11—about the same place itnstarted up again on the trip back north.nWalker Percy wrote of a similarnexperience in The Last Gentleman.nWhen Will Barrett and Jamie headednsouth, they would park their camper atnnight in Carolina and stroll to a servicenstation or fishing camp or grocerynstore, where they’d have a beer or fillnthe tank with spring water or lay inneggs and country butter and grits andnslab bacon; then back to the camper,nwhich they’d show off to the storekeeper,nhe ruminating a minute and: all Ingot to say is, don’t walk off and leaventhe keys in it — and so on in thencomplex Southern tactic of assaying ansort of running start, a joke before thenjoke, 10 assumptions shared and ancommon stance of rhetoric and anwhole shared set of special ironies andnopposites. He was home. Even thoughnhe was hundreds of miles from homenand had never been here and it was notneven the same here — it was older andnmore decorous, more tended to and andream with the past—he was home.nSo I finished my studies in NewnYork, shook the Northern dust fromnmy feet, and moved just in time for mynfirst child to get “Durham, NorthnCarolina” on her birth certificate —nimportant to me, if not to her.nBut now I look around and find thatnthe North seems to have followed me.nOur town and those nearby, like Hillsborough,nhave recently been floodednwith immigrants seeking economic opportunity,ngracious living, and yearroundngolf. I don’t blame them. Butnplease don’t blame me for being lessnthan wild about this development.nNortherners are nothing new innthese parts, and in small numbers theynused to provide a pleasant leaven.nSome of them worked at fitting inn(which isn’t all that hard), many morenadopted a becoming diffidence, andneven the ones who remained defiantlynYankee offered a stimulating counterpointnto the prevailing, easygoing ways.n