Remember Silent Sam, the monument to a Confederate soldier that caused such a stir on the University of North Carolina’s Chapel Hill campus that a decision was made to give the statue, along with a $2.5 million trust fund, to an organization known as the “Sons of Confederate Veterans”? Well, a superior court judge has ordered the Sons to return the monument to the UNC system, whose Board of Governors now has to figure out what to do with this controversial piece of cultural plutonium (Richmond County Daily Journal online, Feb. 26).
Well, a solution may be at hand. Sources close to the Board of Governors indicate that a plan is in the works to attach water wings and a high-intensity halogen lamp to Sam, so that he can be strategically placed at the epicenter of the notoriously treacherous Bermuda Triangle in the North Atlantic, where he will serve as a “beacon buoy” for marine and air traffic.
According to UNC Board Chairman Randy Ramsey, “it’s only fitting that a symbol of a devastating defeat for the South should be redeemed by deploying it to prevent future disasters. Bobbing on the surface of the sea, serving as an ever-vigilant sentry, Silent Sam will help guide ship captains and jet pilots to safety for the next hundred years. We may have lost the war, but we will not let the turbulent waters of the briny deep claim any more of our sons and daughters, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, or sharecropping status.”
At long last, it looks like Silent Sam will be protecting everyone.