Gen. Lane.....

... I met the Wife for lunch yesterday at a nice Mexican restaurant in Athens... it's an interesting place... all decked out in Aztec murals... nice bar area... good food... we quite often eat there...

... anyway, as I was waiting for her to arrive, I sat at a table by myself and watched the traffic pass... and almost by accident, a waving flag caught my attention... a Baptist flag, I believe.. although my expertise in religious standards is far from remarkable... and below the outstretched banner was a drooped flag which I could not make out... behind the flagpole, a large stand of hardwood trees stood... funny, I had never noticed it before in all the years of living here...

... after a while, the Wife arrived and we placed our orders... I mentioned to her that I had noticed the flags, and I pointed them out in the distance... when we looked again, the second flag was now standing out... it was a civil war battle flag.. I thought it strange that in all the years of researching local history, I had never heard or read about a CSA graveyard tucked away in town... we immediately decided to investigate after the meal..

... well, we made a good decision... after driving across the road and climbing a small rise on foot, we arrived at a freshly mown clearing surrounded by ancient oaks.. two or three of which were probably 10 feet thick... and lying in the shade they provided was the whole Lane crowd... General Lane, CSA... his wife and children... and many unmarked stones which were probably servants or slaves...

... we took our time and read each stone... the dates proving that some had died young when the "General" had been a "Colonel"... daughters and their husbands buried side by side... we walked the entire length of the small copse... and when we reached the back side where the woods met a hay field, we stopped and turned around... you could see the tranquility of the place... even though it was only yards from a busy highway... I suppose the fact that it was on a hill kept most of the modern sounds from reaching into the trees... it was a very strange feeling to stand in such a place full of quiet and still be able to watch big rigs thunder by on I-75 and hear nothing but the sound of a hawk swapping a battle cry with an angry blue jay...

... once we got back home, I immediately tried to look up General Lane in "Generals in Gray", but he wasn't listed.... but he was being taken care of.... fresh flags of both Church and Nation were proudly flying over his grave... the grass was neatly being kept.... someone, and we wondered who, had certainly not forgotten General Lane... even with all these years past...