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Show RTVER 1830s Columbus had been considered as a site for a new capital of the United States: there are worse fates that being a small country crossroads. I wandered about the battlefield and wondered about the fight. I think the battle of Columbus was one of the first steps U.S. Grant took toward Vicksburg and glory. I was something of a Civil War buff, but I've come to appreciate what a horror show it really was. As the soldiers said, it was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, and the as usual, the poor man lost. In the quiet of the evening I cooked up quite a meal on one of the WPA barbecues. After dark I paced on the porch of the old mansion, smoking and thinking. The strange mysteriousness settled in on me, but it didn't make me uncomfortable. I felt alive and ready: wherever I was bound, I was surely going to get there. The Strange Mysteriousness: it usually came over me at night, beside the dark river. It was almost a physical feeling, though I suppose it was more accurately a state of mind. It had something to do with my quest, though it wasn't really a quest since I didn't have a clear idea what I was looking for, and most quests are seeking something specific, be it God, gold, or grail. Stranger still, though I couldn't name what it was that I was searching for, I certain that I was about to find it. This made me feel especially strange, because though I'm wildly romantic, I'm only mildly superstitious. I couldn't escape the feeling that something very important was about to happen, that the cosmos was about to let me in on some strange and mysterious secret. Maybe I'd find riches on the river or some sweet southern belle who'd show me that the answer was love,. Mostly the Strange Mysteriousness made me certain that something was going to happen that would change the way I perceived the world. I didn't have the -154- |