So when the radio crackled the news that there was new Confederate skirmishing up Petersburg way, Narvel Boggs climbed down off the roof he was shingling, piled into his primer gray Plymouth Fury and lit out for a piece of the action.
If the South was about to rise again, Narvel was going to be in the thick of it. Civil war came along only once a century, after all.
On the drive to Petersburg, Narvel got on the CB and, using his Colonel Dixie handle, recruited some like-minded souls until a line of primer gray cars occupied an entire lane of Interstate 95 and no one dared stop him. The entourage stopped only for beer and guns and the necessary roadside piss.
At one stop Narvel bought a Confederate uniform and flag. He put it on, tied the Stars and Bars around his collar, then turned around until the breeze sent it skimming smartly off his shoulders.
"What are you supposed to be?" a good ole boy named Hoyt asked from around a plug of chewing tobacco.
"Just call me Colonel Dixie," Narvel said proudly.
When no one laughed, Narvel got into his Dixiomobile and sent it roaring toward Petersburg, hope in his Southern heart.
BY THE TIME cheering pickets waved Colonel Dixie's Raiders onto the grounds of Petersburg National Battlefield, Narvel Boggs saw himself a man of destiny. Who needed superpowers when he had a cause both good and true?
When the Crater came in sight, he put a yellow-gauntleted hand out the window and called, "Cavalrrryyy---halt!"
The convoy of gray cars screeched and slid to a halt with only two or three crumpled fenders.
Narvel stepped out, throwing back his Confederate cape so the wind caught it good and said, "Colonel Dixie's Raiders reporting for action."
"You're too late," said a man in a uniform that combined the Confederate cavalry and the Virginia National Guard.
"Who or what the hell are you?" Narvel demanded.
The man threw a salute. "Captain Royal Wooten Page, at your service, suh. Stonewall Detachment of the Virginia National Guard."
Narvel hesitated. Did a superhero colonel salute a lowly military captain? He decided what the hell and returned the salute.
"Colonel Dixie, savior of the Confederacy." A freshening wind flung his cape across his face with a slap.
"Ah fear you are a mite late with your messianic favors, Colonel. We have agreed to lay down our arms."
"You done surrendered?"
"We are obliged to cease all rebellious operations until such a time as the dread foe is met and sent whirling back to the lower regions from whence he came."
"What dread foe be that?" demanded Narvel, falling easily into the speech patterns of his ancestors. After that PBS special a few years back, it had begun to catch on with the more unreconstructed among them.
"The vile forces of Uncle Sam Beasley, naturally."
"What about them durn Billy Yanks?"
"It appears some form of misunderstanding has been perpetrated upon us."
"Day-am!" said Narvel, fighting to keep his whipping cape out of his eyes. "My raiders didn't come all this way to protest that idiot theme park. We come to lift up the South and deliver it from durance vile. We come to shoot bluebellies." Colonel Dixie turned, thumped his gray chest manfully and said, "Ain't that right, boys!"
"Day-am right!" chorused his raiders, brandishing an assortment of shotguns, squirrel guns and semilegal machine pistols.
A lieutenant in the uniform of the old Army of Northern Virginia stepped up and said, "We can't allow you men to go about toting them things."
"What in hell's wrong with them?" Narvel bellowed.
"They're not in period."
"In what?"
"Period. They're post-Reconstruction, except for them old squirrel guns. They're maybe okay, depending on what ammo you're using."
Narvel Boggs stared in stupefied amazement.
"And you'll have to get them newfangled cars off the battlefield, too."
Narvel Boggs couldn't believe the words he was hearing. "Ain't you fellas been listening to the damn radio?" he barked.
"Radios are twentieth century. Not permissible."
"There's an angry regiment of the Ninth Pennsylvania Memorial Day Sappers barrel-rising this way, according to the radio."
"If they come in peace, Ah imagine we'll give them a right passable welcome," said Captain Page.
"The Rhode Island National Guard has sworn bloody vengeance and is camped out on the Washington side of the Potomac. If they ever ford the river, it'll be a plumb shooting bee."
"Imagine they've calmed down a mite by now," Captain Page allowed.
"And up in New York City they've organized their own Stonewall Brigade."
"How can that be, suh? Ah am proud to lead the only descendant of that mighty band."
"They ain't exactly forming up no sons of Stonewall Jackson, if you take my meaning."
"What other Stonewall is there?"
"The Stonewall Riots kinda Stonewall. It's a, you know, fairy kind of brigade. Call themselves the Stonewall Thespian Company. By that I figure they got some hairy-chested women littering their ranks."
Captain Page paled noticeably. "They have usurped our good name?"
"Usurped, besmirched and appear hell-bent on dragging it through mud and muck and mire and doubtless worse."
"This is a most grievous insult," said Captain Royal Wooten Page in a harsh voice.
"No telling what their unmanly antics will do to the good name of the true Stonewall Brigade."
"If they come," vowed Captain Royal Wooten Page, raising a trembling fist to the pure blue sky of Old Dominion, "we must smite them to the last man."
"Or whatever," added Narvel Boggs, a.k.a. Colonel Dixie, who then turned to his waiting raiders and announced, "We came to fight and we fight to stay!"