Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 19, 1995 TAG: 9506210009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No, Mr. Cole doesn't write folksy banjo music. Nobody does that anymore.
Mr. Cole, as we never dared say in Radford, is on the cutting edge of a bold new venture in American banking.
According to the mail I received the other day, he is the holder of a Civil War series credit card.
The people who sent the mail want me to join C. Bard Cole in getting into debt by plopping down a card that has (a) a picture showing Col. Joshua Chamberlain leading the 22nd Maine at Gettysburg; or (b) a depiction of Gen. Robert E. Lee conferring with his generals before the Battle of Second Manassas.
Personally, I can get along with my plain but trusty MasterCard as far as getting into debt is concerned. Also, I don't want to hear anymore about the 22nd Maine and what happened at Little Round Top.
The literature I got shows Mr. Cole's name on both these cards, but judging from his name, I would think he really has the one with Lee on it. Bard is definitely a Southern name, and he probably feels the way I do about the 22nd Maine.
I suspect Mr. Cole, who won a Civil War history book as a bonus for ordering the credit card, is a successful businessman in Atlanta.
Following the suggestion of the issuing bank, he takes people to lunch on his card and uses bread sticks and salt cellars to explain the battles of Chickamauga, Seven Days and First Manassas.
I also suspect he has used his card to buy a gray uniform that he wears at re-enactments and has spent a bundle on Civil War muskets - again, just as the bank suggested.
He knows that if he ever lost his card on a battlefield tour, the bank would have a replacement on the way in 24 hours - like Ambrose Powell Hill's timely arrival at Antietam.
He lives in a nice Atlanta suburb, has a daughter called Bonnie Blue, and gets bombed sometimes and insists on singing "Lorena" until all the guests get sick of it and leave.
But his wife, who has an 18-inch waist and likes the way he provides for her - especially her very own Mercedes - smiles and puts him to bed time after time.
Her credit card also has Lee and his generals on it, and a lady who throws down a credit card that says S. O'Hara Cole on it could clean out old Bard before he knew what hit him and think about it tomorrow.
by CNB