Hey fellow Titanic fan, glad to know you’re a southern sympathizer and Lee fan, too! :D
Thanks much! I was conceived here in Texas but after the death of my father in WWII, my then-pregnant mom had to move in with relatives up yonder on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line in Pennsylvania. So that forever marks my birthplace on a genuine (not forged) certificate. But, since life begins at conception, I consider myself a Texan and merely a Pennsylvanian by a cruel twist of fate.
I always had an affinity for the South, its people and way of life. That was compounded by a schoolboy crush on a little classmate in elementary school. She was from Orange, Texas but her family moved north after the war since jobs used to be plentiful in that part of the world. I loved her accent and her manners -- "yes, suh" and "yes, ma'am" were rarely spoken up there in Yankee-land. That just further solidified my strong feelings about the South. And she helped me lose my Western Pennsylvanian speech habits. I used to imitate her "y'all" and dropped "yinz" from my lexicon that's characteristic of that region.
And to wrap this up, as I look at the wall just to the right of my desk where I'm typing this, there hangs a portrait of Robert E. Lee. Behind me on the other wall, is a poster reproduction from the White Star Line for RMS Titanic. So, there you have it...the story of my life. :-)