Hey Frank in the swamps, I come from the swamps myself, in NE South Carolina. Interesting your comment that everybody wants to be tribal. Part of a long-time theory of mine is that humans have what I've been calling a "tribal instinct". With the evolutionary collapse of tribes, then communities, then families, people are left with nothing to which they can swear holy allegiance, so they find something/anything to take the place, to fill that space. I've used this theory to explain fanatical sports displays. Here it's football. You could be a mass-murdering maniac but if, on game days, you show up at the stadium with the team logo on your shirt and car and face, you have 60,000 friends (tribesmen, homeboys, etc) who would back you to the death in a fight (which, depending on the particular game, is a real possibility). Probably explains a lot of other modern wierdnesses as well. There was an picture on an album cover I used to have by an old-time string band. The title of the album was something like "Play Music While the World Burns", and the picture showed the band sitting around a campfire, instruments in hand, while a large globe blazed away between them. Sometimes I try to take that attitude myself for purposes of hanging onto sanity.

write again, Chet W.