I glanced over at Lynn and noticed she was getting to know one of theguys better. I went up to her and whispered that she didn't have toworry about m...e and she should go for it. Before I knew it, most of thegang had either left the bar or were in the process of hooking up.Since it was almost closing time, the crowd was getting pretty thin, soI took a seat at the bar. The bartender came over and asked me what Iwas drinking. He was a little older, maybe 25 or so, tall and prettygood looking. . I had a bit of food, but otherwise I was content to watch the byplay between Siobhan and Francine. Siobhan struggling to find ways to manage the flow of Francine’s verbiage, with was finding some success by counterpunching. Francine has the soul of a teacher. She loves to lecture, but her favorite style is Socratic. If a well posed question is a jewel to teacher, Siobhan was a diamond mine. They squabbled like siblings or an old married couple. It was a welcome distraction. I had not been to. Some of them were used to cotton, which surprised him. He’d thought that the state grew only sugar as a cash crop. Louisiana cotton, though, grew higher and had an even longer picking season. Many of the veterans were from Tennessee, and they had seen whites with smaller farms on steeper land.MacGregor already had heard stirrings of resentment among white farmers at having Negro farmers among them. Interspersing the races was unavoidable, but his opinion was that having the freedman grants in. " Right," Aimee said. "We should be prepared for the worst."My mind was in a whirl. I had never really discussed that mysterious call from the VA that I received a while back. I figured that now was the time."Um, girls... I think we have more to fear," I said.The three girls listened to me as I described that weird call from the VA. Mary and Debbie had worried looks as this dovetailed with Aimee's revelation about us being under investigation.Aimee, on the other hand, simply nodded. "I think.