Re: [DL] Civil War re-enacting

["Mr. Christopher McGlothlin, M.Ed." <sosentinel@adelphia.net>]

At 11:09 PM 1/8/2003, Tifaine wrote:
>3) Never do hand-to-hand with guys from New Jersey.

         In my experience, Midwesterners are generally happy to get killed 
in melee; they gladly fall down and get out of the Southern heat they are 
wholly unaccustomed to. Pennsylvanians are the most devious, because they 
refuse to take it at all seriously. They charge you going, "HO! HA-HA! 
Dodge! Turn! Parry! Spin! Thrust!", knowing it's hard to kill someone while 
you're laughing.
         Guys from Jersey on the other hand, to quote a former NCO of mine, 
"think this sh!t is *real*!"

>4) Never take "medicine" from a Texas unit.

         "Medicine" is code for still-brewed hooch.

>5) Watch out for Pierre.
>6) Always take *all* of a cavalryman's revolvers before he gets *really* 
>drunk.

 From my weekly column for the New Gamers Order listserver, with the names 
changed and edited to protect the guilty:

         My past four days were spent at the re-enactment of one the 
bloodiest days in American history, the Battle of (deleted). Traditionally, 
this is a very emotional time for me, one that can only truly be shared 
with the band of brothers that is my comrades in gray, but on this 
occasion, events were to take a turn to the surreal.
         Our Company was encamped next to the 300th Virginia Infantry, 
whose members are, naturally enough, all from Ohio. We had been previously 
warned this particular unit was currently on some sort of probationary 
status, and this unnerved me to no end. You see, even in a hobby replete 
with explosives, firearms, large bladed weapons, field artillery, and 
horses unafraid of man, one has to be quite stunningly irresponsible to 
draw ANY sort of reprimand.
         (I have vivid memories, for instance, of one [deleted] so drunk on 
moonshine he literally couldn't stand employing one of the six fully loaded 
revolvers he was carrying on his person to shoot one of my young privates 
in...well, the privates. His punishment? He was promoted mere days later to 
full Colonel and made Corps Cavalry Commander, a post he holds to this very 
day. But I digress...)
         The Ohio Confederates seemed like normal, unremarkable folk, save 
for one fellow whom I knew only as "Pierre." Pierre has reportedly been 
involved in re-enacting since it was known as "the actual War", and I first 
saw him proudly wearing the finery befitting the Southern civillian 
gentleman he aimed to portray. The only two things that detracted from 
Pierre's impression were the rather large oxygen tank he was forced to keep 
by his side at all times, and the decidedly non-period golf cart he kept in 
camp and used to get about.
         Now, we Southerners are renowned as a compassionate people (absent 
that whole slaveholding thing, of course), so we all admired Pierre's 
dedication and mutually assented to overlook the elder recreationist's 
life-preserving implements, no matter how non-19th Century they were. It 
was not until we (and all the surrounding units) noticed that everyone in 
the 300th Virginia *except* for Pierre seemed to be driving the golf cart 
about that anyone complained.
         To be sure, Pierre used the cart to leave camp each night and 
return to his camper parked some distance away, where he could be nearer 
his large store of spare oxygen cylinders. However, this was wholly 
unrelated to the other members of his unit using the cart to ride to the 
porta-johns, the ice vendor, the sutler camp, etc. When two amply 
inebriated members of the 300th loudly annouced their forthcoming attempt 
to ride the cart into town (a mere five miles away) in advance of the 
liquor store closing at midnight, the final straw had been delivered.
         The event organizers responded in a fair and reasonable manner in 
the estimation of most, and simply asked that the cart be used by no one 
but Pierre, and for the sole purpose of getting him to his camper and back. 
During other times, the cart was to be concealed in a nearby grove of 
trees: close enough to be used in an emergency, but otherwise not 
despoiling anyone's illusion of the 19th Century returned to Maryland. Most 
of Pierre's fellows seemed okay with the new strictures--if begrudgingly 
so--but the man himself was obviously less than pleased with the 
arrangement. As I stared at his face, with its canyon-like wrinkles 
seemingly threatening to envelope the oxygen mask whole at any moment, I 
perceived his eyes turning to flame beneath his snowy eyebrows.
         At nightfall, Pierre and his cart returned to the designated 
modern-camping area many yards distant, and was soon lost from sight. For 
some time afterwards, I comfortably nursed a root beer and Paddy Griffith's
controversial _Battle Tactics of the Civil War_, and then I heard the hue 
and cry.
         Looking up from my dusty tome, I beheld two tons of speeding 
recreational death roaring out from the darkness. Only a timely rear saved 
two of the corps command staff's prize mounts from becoming Alpo, as Pierre
and his R.V. raced towards the re-enactors' camp at 60 fearsome miles per 
hour. As he unhesitatingly drove over two blazing campfires (and the 
dinners that were cooking on them), I was left utterly dumbfounded by the 
sheer absurdity of it all. Pierre and his death-dealing Winnebago soon 
advanced to the parade grounds, and started spinning a series of enormous 
doughnuts in the formerly pristine soil, backing off not a measure from the 
60 mph speeds he'd earlier attained.
         As the Maryland sod took flight in evermore staggering amounts, I 
caught a glimpse of Pierre's ancient countenance, looking for all the world 
like some latter-day Yippie busy sticking it to The Man. Behind his radical 
visage was the noticeably shifting store of oxygen bottles, rolling from 
side to side with a clanging fury to match
that of the Winnebago, surely now the Unhappiest Camper of Them All.
         Obviously struck by Pierre's flagrant disregard for the Winnebago 
Company's rules for safe vehicle operation, event security finally arrived 
on the scene to halt the rampaging R.V. Much to my surprise, Pierre
actually stopped rather than mowing down the t-shirt clad volunteers 
piecemeal. I briefly envisioned a redux of the closing scene of _Billy 
Jack_, with an imprisoned but unbowed Pierre marched off into captivity by 
the corrupt authorities as his fellows from the 300th lined the way, all 
giving the raised-fist "power" salute.
         As it turned out, I recalled the proper film but the wrong scene, 
as Pierre opened up the door of his camper not to surrender, but to place 
his elderly, wrinkled fist in the face of the nearest event-security 
volunteer, swiftly dropping the younger man to the churned-up ground. Much 
to my further surprise, it ultimately took only five of the event 
organizers' elite enforcers to subdue the 140-year-old man and his bottled 
oxygen.
         Pierre, his golf cart, and his R.V. were escorted from the event 
and asked not to return. I remained, with my mind struggling helplessly to 
make sense of it all. In the end, I dealt with it the only way I knew: to 
laugh uncontrollably at odd intervals following, even during the lonely 
drive home.

>All the other rules made sense, but at the risk of heading into the
>dangerously off-topic, I must ask "Why?"

         Despite the grains of truth, they were all intended to be 
humorous. I hope this explains all.

Deo Vindice,
Mr. Christopher L. McGlothlin, M.Ed.

Educator & Freelance RPG Writer
Fellow, Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design
Moderator of the New Gamers Order Listserver

"Look upon me! I'll show you the life of the mind!"
--Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), _Barton Fink_