As the old Soviet joke goes, “In the Soviet Union, we know what the future holds. It’s the past that’s always changing.”      (lyrics below, after the song description)                                             
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In this small, quaint college town, the town-gown relationship, for most of the 150 plus years since the college’s founding, had been productive.  The town benefited economically,  & students appreciated the town's charm, history & heritage.   Often on sunny days, classes of students would visit the park at the downtown square, brought by their history professors to learn not only of the town's history, but also about eleven young local men lost in America's Civil War, memorialized by the modest statue of a lone soldier, who had stood like a sentry at the the park's entrance since 1905.

But times change, don't they...
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More Americans died in the American Civil War than in any other war in our country's history, including each of the World Wars.  In my song, the word "Daughters" references the Daughters Of The Confederacy, a women's civic group formed in the 1890's by daughters (and wives & nieces) of men lost in that war.  The attached picture is the inscription on the base of a statue of a uniformed soldier, standing in a park in Dallas, Georgia, a small town 30 miles northwest of Atlanta.
                                                            



Lyrics....
My name is McKenzie, and Jenkins and Embry,
And eight other names you still hear in these parts,
For over a century, I stood quiet at the entry,
On East Main into Lafayette Park,
A plaque was engraved, told why I was placed,
On those gardened grounds,
In this Small American Town.

Commissioned in 1905,
By the Daughters for fathers who died,
I was erected to honor eleven so bold,
Not a single one knowing he’d never grow old,
On these boys account I’d forever stand proud,
Stand sturdy & stout,
In this Small American Town.

The kids from the college on Heritage Hill,
Would hold class in the park’s warm sunshine,
They learned of this cruel war we waged with ourselves,
How 600,000 had died,
And of eleven from here just about their age,
Small farmers & blacksmiths & craftsmen by trade,
None fought for cotton, not one owned a slave,
And they learned why the Daughters placed me on that mound,
To keep those boys’ memories around,
In this Small American Town.

But enlightened new students don’t meet in that space,
Through new glasses old wars just don’t look the same,
Now scholars say men who went off to that war,
Fought not out of duty, but hate,
I feared I’d be forgotten by Heritage Hill,
Yesterday’s soldiers, obscure battlefields,
But alas, rearranged history determined my fate,
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Wise men have long warned of changing the past,
Of purges & vengeance & iconoclasts,
Then one fateful night there was smoke rolling down from the Hill,

Quickly surrounded by torches of fire,
Cursing & spitting & rage in the air,
Rope round my shoulders, a cheer by the crowd,
I came crashing down to the ground….
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An uneasy quiet in the town since that day,
Hushed conversations about how things have changed,
But up on the Hill it’s all smiles & goodwill,
For it’s the 2nd weekend in May,
Ceremonial speeches, awards all around,
Uncles & aunts & parents in town,
To watch the sweet children who torched & burned me to the ground,
Be awarded their caps & their gowns,
In this Small American Town.

Small American Town

Bruce Avery