Alva Review-Courier -

Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Isaac Stand Waite: all names of generals of the Confederacy, men who fought for what they believed, whether it was right or wrong.

They are also the names of schools in Oklahoma City. The school board voted 7-0 in favor of renaming all of them. In fairness to the board members, they had no choice unless they wanted to be burned at the stake after the meeting.

I am pretty sure all the young people that have gotten educations at these schools never did tell them to keep their diplomas because they were insulted by the school's name. Let's all get a grip on reality. Indians want to change the names of anything they deem “insulting” to their heritage, when in reality they should be proud that people thought enough of them to use their names, etc. I have never owned any slaves, nor my dad or grandfather. Never wanted to or thought about it. On the same note I know lots of African Americans, some a couple generations and none of them were slaves, or wanted to be. What happened before and in the Civil War was over 150 years ago. It is history and nothing more. Taking the statues down and changing the names of schools will not alter anything that happened. What we do today and the way we treat each other is much more important. It is sad, whatever race, nationality, sex or age, you are that you have to blame history, or someone else for your problems and not just suck it up and “git-er-done” yourself.

If you want to do the blame game, I lost a friend in Vietnam and they were horrible to their captives. Does that not mean we should close every Vietnamese restaurant in America because of what their ancestors did?

I did come up with a plan on the school name changes. Replace the names on the schools from the generals' names whose only crime was fighting for what they believed in with the names of the three biggest bigots in America: Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama. Try to explain to your kids how those names got on the buildings!

What a week! Free food at Erikson Steel noon Wednesday, free food at Kohlrus Real Estate noon Friday and finishing up with Mrs. Riggin's retirement from the bank Friday afternoon with cookies and punch. Enjoyed it all very much and thank you one and all for having us. Shepherd's east of Alva had a celebration also, but their “free” food was a dollar so I didn't attend.

One parting shot. To blame any one legislator for the poor work being done in OKC is like blaming all the chefs in Alva because one burnt your eggs.