Symbols on the road

If you think America has been adulterated by sushi restaurants and aspirational life, just drive up Route 231.

First, I'm side-tracked by the hand-lettered signs promising the riches of hand-dipped ice cream, pistachio logs and gator jerky at Kountry Candy. I had to stop. Turns out the wooden cottage offers all that and more – including jerky from emu and kangaroo. It also boasts a taxidermist-treated wide-mouth bass on the wall and various gator jaws for sale.

There are Confederate flag fuzzy dice as well, and on up the road I see more remnants of Johnny Reb: flags fluttering in the breeze and stickers on souped-up trucks. As a daughter of the South myself, I know that many Confederate-flag wavers don’t think of it as a symbol of keeping “them” – blacks, Jews, women – down on the farm, but more as a symbol of sticking it to the Yankees. It’s similar to what I was told a few years ago in Muslim Africa when I saw a young man in an Osama shirt – for him and his friends, Osama was more a symbol of Muslim pride than anti-Americanism. Distinctions, or rationalizations? Or both?