Frankly, My Dear…

I would love to sit down for coffee and cigars (him smoking, not me) on the veranda with Rhett Butler. I was always a lover of that bad boy and why, oh why, Scarlett O’Hara wanted old Ashley Wilkes anyway, I never got. I mean really, let’s start out with the fact that he only had eyes for another woman (well-maybe that was it. The challenge- although as we all know, Scarlett could never believe someone would prefer anyone else on the planet over her, but I digress). The second thing wrong with Ashley was his name. Let’s face it, it’s kind of a sissy-boy name, isn’t it? Scarlett called Melanie mealy-mouthed but I always felt Ashley was as well.

All that passion bottled up in Mr. Butler just asking to be unleashed makes my lil ole heart go pitter-patter. I’d like to talk to him about why in the world he was so tenacious in his pursuit of the whiny, self-centered Ms. O’Hara. He was clearly one of those men who could get the attention of any lady he desired- and here we are back to that whole challenge thing- did he want Scarlett for the same reasons she wanted Ashley? Because it was a challenge? Was there really love there or merely the idea of love? On both their parts? What a nasty, nasty little battle that all was.

Margaret Mitchell always said the story was over when Rhett left and that he never went back to Scarlett. I believe that but I’d like to chat with him on how he actually managed after all those years to get that vixen out of his head and his heart to be able to keep away from her when he’d been so unsuccessful in the past. I mean, yeah, she was awful in the end but wasn’t she really awful through the whole thing? What changed? And by that, I mean, why then? Why not sooner?

A mint julep on the porch and a carriage ride wouldn’t be remiss either. Who wouldn’t want to drive through the streets of Atlanta in the 1860s with that charming man on the seat next to her?

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