Recently, I was staring at a beautiful night sky above my Carolina home and wondering, just as I did as a wee lad, what the dickens is out there?
The tantalizing flickering of the stars and the never blinking glow of the planets still thrills me today just as it did so many decades ago. That velvet blackness punctuated by portals of sparkling light ignites a yearning deep within that part of me where lies my soul.
I long for a New World. No, I haven’t slipped a cog, at least -- I don’t think I have. Follow along here, for a while, and then determine if I make any sense to you.
In the 16th and 17th centuries Europe had become a hell hole. At least for the independent, tough-minded individualist who was lucky, or unlucky, enough to find himself, or herself, living there. They began to long for a place to which they could migrate and live their lives the way they wanted to. It wasn’t long until the Spanish and the Dutch began to colonize a place few common people even knew about. Some place called “The New World”.
Problem for the nobility was… you couldn’t keep a secret like that for long. Soon word leaked out and quickly spread all across Europe. There WAS a “new world” out there… far across the storm tossed Atlantic. Eyes began to turn westward. That old longing to seek out whatever lay on the other side of the hill began to resurface in the hearts and minds of European men and women.
(Editor’s note: J.D. Longstreet passed away in 2014. He will be greatly missed.)
Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.
He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.
Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.