Cat fight at the Confederate Chapel

I have no cat in this fight.

I don't own and I have never flown a Confederate flag. Nobody on either side of my family ever expressed to me any mourning for the South's loss of the Civil War. The Confederate flag, to me, is merely a historical symbol, freighted with neither negative nor positive meaning. I am sorry for Richmond's and the South's suffering and loss during and right after the war, just as I am saddened by the North's suffering and loss during and right after the war. I am grateful the North won the war, simply because I can't imagine not being an American.

In short, although I am a native of Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy 150 years ago, I have no axe to grind in this fight.

But I do miss the flags.

The fight I'm talking about is between the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the "flaggers," as they call themselves, who were angered by the museum's removal of the Confederate flags from the front of the Confederate Memorial Chapel on the museum's grounds.

You can read the museum's position on its blog by clicking here.

You can read blog posts by a flagger by clicking here.

So why am I posting about the flag-removal cat fight?

A little more background is in order.

I worked at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for 33 years before I retired recently. The museum was built in 1936 on the grounds of what had been a home for needy Confederate veterans. Still standing on the property was the Home for Needy Confederate Women, which didn't close down until 1989. A few years later, the women's home was remodeled into staff space for the museum, and my office was moved there.

Every time I walked from my office to the main museum building, I passed by the charming Confederate Memorial Chapel, which has stood alongside Grove Avenue since 1887. From its front porch columns, the chapel had flown two Confederate flags since 1993.

The splash of color -- red, white and blue -- against the background of the meticulously kept, white clapboard chapel was dazzling, eye-catching and pleasantly attractive.

You can see what the chapel with its flags looked like by clicking here, and you can see what it looks like now, without the flags, by clicking here.

Now the museum has taken the flags down, and the flaggers are picketing the museum along the Boulevard. I saw them for the first time this weekend and stopped to take a picture.

As I said before, I have no cat in this fight.

But the aesthetics have changed. What I miss most now is the lively splash of color the flags provided.

Nothing more. Nothing less.