What made this character not seem credible to me is not that an old man still feels he’s a small towner at heart but, that this particular American is the mayor of Grantville in fall of 1634. He’s not just a regular guy caught up in it all, he’s the town mayor. Ths means he’s had to deal with so many situations since the ROF that he’d never’ve had to face in WV that it shocks me that he hasn’t deeply absorbed that he’s not in Kansas anymore by this time. The situations I speak of include mundane downtimer everyday concerns and negotiations with other towns, any number of things that come across a mayor’s desk in a town whose population and demographics have changed so drastically so quickly. And, the place has been raided by thugs hired by a hostile power. Again, he’s the mayor not just any old fellow.

Having said all of that, I’ll concede that I’m from the big city born and raised so, it’s quite conceivable that I just haven’t expreienced the small town American old codger in all his conservative splendor. BTW, Peter, got a good chuckle about your “denial” pun. Wish I could come up with one to match it but, I’m having a brain fart.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, and Henry Dreeson is not nearly perfect. He’s made huge accomodations to reality since the RoF, but he’s still an old man who in his heart wishes he didn’t have to deal with this stuff. Somewhere inside, he wants to cling to the old ways, in part to convince himself that they really aren’t gone. This desire expresses itself in an irrational argument; well, how else WOULD it be expressed? He reminds me of my now-departed uncles; they would have done much the same.

A more prophetic sentence like that you cant find in all the novellas, novels, short stories of the 1632 universe.