let sleeping dogs lie

 There was a commercial on television that for some reason brought back an old memory. This commercial had something to do  a canon or the south , something like that. Anyway, I was reminded of when I was a little guy and we were visiting with my cousin Gary. It was shortly after Christmas and Gary had received the Johnny Reb Canon as a gift. This was a pretty cool toy. It came with a Johnny Reb hat, a flag, the ramrod and canon balls ! You just put that canon ball into the end of the barrel, ram it home until the spring was cocked and you were ready to go to war ! All we needed was to find them Yanks. Well we spotted one, bivouacked in the kitchen. Oh, he was a shaggy one and sound asleep. It was his dog, Spunky but you know how kids are. So we took careful aim and fire ! It was a direct hit. Spunky, I mean that Yank jumped up off that floor and took off a runnin'. That's those yellow bellies for ya. We took off chasin't after him towing that canon behind us. As we entered the forest, the living room, spunky ran under the chair my Uncle was sitting in. Well, the General wanted to know just what the heck was going on. When he got the intel that we had shot Spunky with that Johnny Reb canon he wasn't pleased at all. The pair of us was demoted to corporal. That became our names, Corporal Punishment ! Yes sir, we received instruction on the proper treatment of animals that afternoon. We were even threatened with being shot with a canon ! A belt across the backside was all we got though but it was enough. I remember it clearly. The General administering the punishment and my father being witness to it all. Afterward I had to leave in shame. Definitely a lesson I took to heart. And that is the Johnny Reb story.
 Given todays political climate I was doubly reminded of this incident. I couldn't help but wonder what would be said today. I expect you couldn't buy a Johnny Reb canon anymore, too offensive I suppose, in more than one way ! I mean we knew that a canon was an offensive weapon, what we didn't know was that flag was too. And remember this took place when I was a child , living on the eastern end of Long Island, not exactly confederate territory. I guess my cousin and I were just rebels at heart. Fought a lot of Nazis back then as well, and Indians of course. Learned quite a bit about all of them over the years. No, it wasn't always as it seemed, history being written by the victors and all. But it was history and was done with. At the end of the day, when we were done playing, we returned to reality not expecting anything from the past. If anything, the past we were taught reinforced our behavior in the future. We learned that there was good and bad in the past. We learned that we could change the future by eliminating the mistakes of the past. One of them that I learned was, don't shoot at a sleeping enemy ! He just night run and get reinforcements ! Best advice, let sleeping dogs lie.