I enjoy watching The Big Bang Theory. On the hilarious sitcom, Jim Parsons' character, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, has a segment where he records a show titled Fun With Flags. On one such episode he begins by saying that tonight's episode will not be fun. Well, it hasn't been a fun week down in Dixie.

The recent tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, has once again stirred up the controversy about flying the Confederate battle flag in public. I've stayed out of the conversations, calmly watching from afar. It seems to me that a few extremists, on both sides of the issue, have inflamed the passions of the masses - much like abolitionists and secessionists did in the late 1850s, leading to the war of 1861-1865. Hmmm. If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

A couple of years ago a colleague called and asked me if I'd be willing to speak on the subject of flying the battle flag. He was writing a piece for the Chattanooga Times-'Free Press. I responded that I do not believe the flag should be eradicated. It is a part of history. However, I feel it should be taken down from public places. It should only be flown and displayed in historic locations, such as museums, Civil War re-enactments and battlefields. People choose to visit those locales. It shouldn't be flown just anywhere.  It does offend a good many people. And for good reason. No one can get around the fact that the war was fought. Why was it fought? Money. Plain and simple. And for the southern agricultural economy, that wealth was tied directly to slavery. Now, the rich men could not very well ask all of the poor farmers to fight their war, so the boys had to be sold on something else. That something else was states' rights. Back then, the majority of people in the United States thought of themselves as citizens of their state first, country second. Fighting for home was considered honorable. Once invaded, the Southern men rushed to arms.

History needs to be taught. Not some idealized version. The truth. We need to learn from the past in the present, so that our collective futures will be brighter. Common sense, people.

On a closing note, I hope you will read my book A SECESSIONIST CHRISTMAS CAROL. It's a Civil War twist on the Charles Dickens classic. The three ghosts of Christmas past, present and future visit a fire-eating secessionist orator on Christmas Eve of 1860 in Columbia, South Carolina and warn him of the evils to come should the old Palmetto Republic pull out of the Union. What if it had remained loyal? That is the big question these days.   

No, I'm not talking about submitting bad material, or to borrow a sports phrase, "taking a dive". I'm talking about how to handle not winning a writing contest, even though you thought you had turned in a masterpiece. 

I've had my works entered in several writing contests and I still haven't won anything. At first, I wasn't too concerned about it. These things are subjective. Judges have certain tastes, likes and dislikes. They're human, like the rest of us. But last week, my perspective changed. I submitted a short story that I had meticulously edited and thought for sure would be a winner. I was wrong. It didn't even place in the top three, or receive honorable mention. As the winners were announced at our writers meeting, I politely clapped and offered my congratulations.

On the way home, I decided to look at my story again, and try to figure out ways to make it better. After a couple of days, I sat down with it. Then, I ripped into it like a monkey on a cupcake. Turns out, it wasn't a masterpiece, like I had thought. It needed work. So, I took a red pen to it and neatly carved it up. I made corrections, deleted sentences and added more description. You know what? Now it's better.

I received an email with a list of publishers looking for short fiction stories. I'm going to check them out, and see if any of them will be interested in publishing my piece. Maybe one of them will. And that's the lesson. Keep plugging away. No story is perfect. Every draft, every edit is making it stronger. When it is ready to leave and find a home, it will be published. Until then, I'll keep nurturing it, and at the same time, continue to hone my writing.