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Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 13:44:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ken Grabach <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: NORTHER/SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WAR? <fwd>
Sender: Ken Grabach <[log in to unmask]>


It was very amusing to read Jim Minton's droll comments, and the equally
witty reply from Johnnie Sutherland.  I heard the broadcast yesterday, but
missed some detail as I was shaving at the time, and therefore had focused
my attention in a different direction.  It was useful to get the
explication of the Globe reference.  As a unionist sympathiser
although a former resident of the south, I appreciated the reminder of the
good Volunteers of eastern Tennessee.

The mention of various separatist movements, some more serious than
northern vs southern California dissensions, reminds me of a couple that
involved Michigan.  First, there is the great Maumee Strip War, of 1837,
in which Michigan militia marched against Ohio to claim for themselves the
Maumee, or Toledo Strip, a ribbon of land on the border, from Lake Erie in
the east to the Indiana state line.  Gunfire shot in anger was avoided
when Congress acted to give what is now the Upper Peninsula to Michigan in
statehood, stripping it away from Wisconsin territory.

The other is that in the 60s and 70s, this very same Upper Peninsula had
many inhaabitants who threatened to secede and form a new state.  This was
in aggravation of the southeastern bias, real or perceived, of the
government in Lansing, in the southeast, and of most of the citizenry, who
live in the southern third of the Lower Peninsula.  These UP residents
knew they had something on the southrons, as most of the vacation spots
for the Michigan city dwellers is 'up north', meaning somewhere north of
Clare or Bay City.  Many of these up north destinations are in the UP.
This weekend, folk going up I-75 can expect heavy traffic on the Mackinac
Bridge in the northbound lanes.

_________________________________________
Ken Grabach         <[log in to unmask]>
Documents and Maps Librarian
Miami University Libraries
Oxford, Ohio  45056  USA
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