You Know You're in the South When...

There is a Confederate Cemetery in town and on Memorial Day you can find a field of Confederate flags honoring the Civil War soldiers buried there.



It was a disconcerting feeling going into this cemetery
with all of these Confederate flags flying, a symbol I
associate with racism and bigotry.  As Jason and I
walked into the cemetery a woman was leaving and
she said "look at all those flags, isn't it just beautiful."
Beautiful is definitely not the word I would have used.
Frightening is the word I would have used.
 

I have often driven past the Confederate Cemetery in town, and have wanted to go wander around, but it is usually locked when I've been past.  However, this weekend, for Memorial Day, it was open and Memorial Day was being observed there in a way I have never experienced, with Confederate flags marking many graves.

I learned something on this trip through the Confederate Cemetery (thanks to Google on a smart phone :) ).  I had thought the "Stars and Bars" was the name of the flag for the Confederate government, and was this flag:

Not true!  This flag was never the official flag of the Confederate government, it was the battle flag of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and was square, like this:

The "Stars and Bars" was the name of the official flag of the Confederate government, but it looked like this: