Sunday, July 27, 2014

A Quiet Living History

Greenville OH

July 26-27, 2014


It seems to every event I attend, I forget one item of importance.  I forgot my skillet at Sharon Woods, so had to borrow a skillet to fry my food.  This weekend—I forgot my food.

After a rough night in my shelter due to allergies from the weather change, we had some donuts provided by the event.  Capt Sharp had plenty of extra bacon and corn meal, but required I cook the food if I were to share in it.  With the extra bacon grease, J.R. mixed in corn meal and water to make a sort-of pancake.

Most of the day Pvt John Farrelly gave the living history education to the spectators as they wandered through our camp, though we also drilled some to test Sgt Kletzli at command and put us in skirmish drills.

Being a timeline event, there were reenactors from every time period between the French and Indian War to the Civil War.  One of the groups there was a Yankee Civil War artillery group, who brought their cannon, but never fired it.  Three other artillery groups were there and fired their cannons.  One of the members of this group—I think they were something like “Ohio Valley Civil War Association”—was overheard by Sgt Kletzli to say to a spectator that it was disrespectful for a Confederate group to be there, as if we should try to forget half of America.  I don’t really know who that reenactor thinks he is or if he is representative of his organization—but the very comment left me with an extreme negative opinion of the group.  This was our third year here and their first, and what about representing a part of our history is disrespectful?  It advertised a level of stupidity of that group—the comment was highly offensive.

At supper, we wandered to the vendor area, where I purchased a gyro from a good selection.

Taking a slight break from the Civil War, J.R. and Tim Ellifrit introduced a bit of the other time-period they reenact by bringing a bazooka to test fire for a D-Day reenactment, after the public had dwindled for the evening.  I'm a little worried about the pictures we might see from this--a Civil War Confederate launching a bazooka.  It was cool to see--but at the same time, "farb" is going to be a comment we hear.  Well--it was out for just a short time, at least.  We went back to normal after they were done playing.

Evening came with the threat of thunderstorms and lightning flashed through the skies, but only a light rain washed the ground for about twenty minutes.  We gathered under a fly and J.R. read from an obituary he found of Colonel Hume Field, who served as commander over the 1st Tennessee Infantry during the Civil War.  It was fascinating to hear the story from another perspective.

I slept a little better that night, but still felt a bit like a zombie in the morning.  More donuts, and J.R. brought out salt pork, which he first boiled once to get much of the salt out, then battered them in flour and fried them in the bacon grease from Saturday’s breakfast, followed by more corn meal cakes.  I finally learned how to properly cook salt pork.

We held a couple of speed-shooting competitions for the spectators.

We drilled some, this time with Sgt Nyman in command, again with more skirmish drills.

The weekend did seem to go quickly, but perhaps it was because I felt I was in too much a daze from allergy problems.  It was an enjoyable weekend, and the organizers treated us exceptionally well—I look forward to returning next year.

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