Blame the Yankees

As a good Southerner, I've been doing this for quite some time. For just about everything.

However, it was only within the last week that I began to put the pieces of an argument together. A surprisingly good argument. For why the Yankees really are to blame for everything.

I started reading Gone with the Wind the summer after my senior year of high school when I was stuck inside with mono. I got about halfway through before I got better and too busy to ever finish it. It sat on my bookshelf until I picked it back up a week or so ago. I figured starting the summer before college and finishing it the summer after had a nice symmetry to it.

Reading, a line struck me:

"The old days had gone but these people would go their ways as if the old days still existed, charming, leisurely, determined not to rush and scramble for pennies as the Yankees did, determined to part with none of the old ways."

Determined not to rush and scramble for pennies as the Yankees did.

This reminded me of something I knew. Merchants--precursors to today's CEOs and brokers--were once looked down upon. The idea of scrambing for pennies was completely abhorent and shameful. Scarlett was especially horrified that "Frank had the gumption to start a store."

What a completely foreign notion in today's culture of rush-rush-rush, me-me-me, money-money-money at all costs. The same merchants and Scrooges who selfishly think of nothing but money have gone from despised and untrusted to the top of the social pyramid. In fact, they've become the ideal and "corporate citizens" can get away with just about anything.

Imagine, once upon a time, there was a world where people thought there was something more important than the unconstrained pursuit of wealth. Education, culture, and refinement were the ideal. And there was that weird honor thing.

Not to say that world was perfect, of course. There were (obviously) problems. Some of them quite big. You know, like that slavery ordeal.

But, to me, the idea that money wasn't the ultimate goal of existence is one of the most regrettable things to have gone with the wind.

And I'm gonna blame the Yankees for the current state of affairs.