Re: Notice of flare up of Civil War imagery

One hundred and forty two hours ago, I wandered into the Houston Casino, not
really sure why other than a free floating anxiety that could only be
appeased by attending to the ministerial tasks in life that so frequently
make us forget how good life is. So after a rousing game of tennis on Friday
morning while my children were frolicking with Dede's 3 children at the
Houston Country Club, I tackled my desk and made head way to no where. After
trashing 457 emails, I opened the the 458th. And then it came to me. An
epic. A history. A sense of time, commitment and value. A place where my
roots are (as you all know, my mom and dad are buried in a family graveyard
200 feet from the only barn not burned in the Shenandoah valley during the
Civil War and which was used a Yankee hospital). And of course there is the
hope of sustaining energy to cope with this lackluster, stressful career in
the Casino.

And the Gods must have seen this coming too. Being meager and always wanting
to commit small, I sought only volume 1 of the opus. Not to be found.
Plenty of volume 2s and 3s but not a volume 1 to be found. Other than in the
sole, 3 volume set, neatly packages in the box, high up on a lonely shelf. I
knew I was on the right track when the person behind me tried to grab it out
of my hands. I fought and won.

I'm now on page 32 having met Jefferson Davis and Dear Abe. At this rate
I'll be finished in about 4 years, a true history of the war.

May Shelby be with us all providing sustaining .......

es

Christian Yoder
04/16/2001 11:12 AM

To: Genia FitzGerald/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Elizabeth Sager/HOU/ECT@ECT
Subject: Re: Notice of flare up of Civil War imagery

I'm sure there's a scholar out there who has already published that big
magnum opus on "Dogs in the Civil War." However, Shelby Foote doesn't
mention a single dog in his work and so the topic hasn't entered my
imagination. Your name is Patrick Cleburne. I'm sorry about the gender
thing, but your spirit and behavior is the same as his and you're going to
have to go through this reading cycle bearing my comments about his behavior.
I'll try to work in some dog analogies if I can. Cleburne was a German
Shepherd if there ever was one. I would have hated to be across that line
looking at his formation over there. ----cgy

From: Genia FitzGerald on 04/16/2001 07:43 AM CDT
To: Christian Yoder/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Elizabeth Sager/HOU/ECT@ECT
Subject: Re: Notice of flare up of Civil War imagery

Christian,

Isn't there some canine hero/heroine that is mentioned in one of the history
books? I would prefer waging the battle as a four-legged soldier, North or
South it doesn't matter, we are here just to serve our Masters.

Awaiting my name

Christian Yoder
04/12/2001 05:37 PM

To: Elizabeth Sager/HOU/ECT@ECT, Genia FitzGerald/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: Notice of flare up of Civil War imagery

One hundred and forty two years ago today, the great great great grandfather
of Stacy Dickson, a guy named Edmond Ruffin, when other sober minded men held
back, stepped up to touch a burning torch to a big cannon pointed across the
Charleston harbor at Fort Sumter and touched off the great Civil War. His
rash temper caused him to play directly into Lincoln's hand and forever after
it would be said: "The South started the war." On this anniversary day,
Clyde Durham, itinerant journeyman energy attorney, touches off his third
consecutive reading of Shelby Foote's great American Iliad about that war,
this reading giving him more sustaining energy to cope with his lacklustre,
stressful career in the Casino than any other theraputic activity he has yet
found. The Civil War imagery and analogies will be flowing soon. I see
Elizabeth as a daughter of old Virginia with the Sager homestead right there
in the Valley where much of the action took place. I'm not sure where your
folks would have fit in Genia, but you will soon be assigned the proxy name
I can't think of at the moment, the Irish warrior who fought for the South.
Unfortunately I am on the North side. I hope this won't cause serious
professional difficulties for us as we wade through the epic battles and
their respective corporate analogies. ----cgy