We spent part of the day in Historic Saint Mary's City, Maryland. I'll post more later, but here's Tam in the pillory, Tam with a helmet and musket, and hoisting a musket. We also witnessed a display of firing (repelling a raid by pirates) which will go on You Tube, probably in two pieces since it's longer than YouTube's 10 minute limit. As I noted yesterday, the promotion spoke of the need for militia to repel pirates and Virginians, and soon after we arrived someone fired a cannon. They must have recognized us for what we are.
There was an encampment as well so we spent some time watching the reenactors; Sarah's seen reenactors doing later periods but the 1600s stuff was a bit new for all of us. We have a friend who does 18th century and have seen a fair number of civil war reenactments, but the 17th century stuff was different enough to be in
teresting -- although Sarah declared that the battle part "stunk," she showed interest in visiting the encampment beforehand.
Reenactors of course can never recreate the past, which really is and always remains another country; a reminder of this came at the end of the battle when a group of girls in bikinis, possibly from the college adjacent or from a boat on the river, wandered through the reenactment area, in rather stark contrast to the guys in 17th century halberds and helmets. I have no idea what the girls were doing there (it was a bit warm but still October) but it made for considerable comment. [UPDATE: It belatedly occurred to me the next day that this could have been a deliberate college prank, showing up in bikinis -- I don't think any were in one-piece suits -- at a 1600s reenactment. Assuming college students still do stunts like they used to.] [UPDATE 2: When I mentioned this to Tam she said, "Sure, I figured it was a prank all along. They were all in black, skimpy suits. What else could it be?" Okay, I'm slow, but I got there eventually.] The pirates, having been repelled, retreated in the same direction as the girls, but that may have been coincidence. It would have made a great picture but it happened too quickly and I had the camera turned off.
The 17th century reenactors, like civil war reenactors, tend to be on the heavy-set side: rather more so than I suspect the first settlers of Lord Baltimore's proprietary really were. (The movies "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals" used renenactors for battle scenes, but some of them look a lot better fed than your average Confederate infantryman.)
More on the day in a bit. As usual I don't post pictures of Sarah's face on the blog to respect her privacy.
A bit later: Although I knew Sarah hadn't enjoyed the "battle" that much (there weren't that many reenactors and 17th century firelocks take a long time to reload, so the musketry was scattered at best), I asked her what she had enjoyed most about the day: was it the reenactors' encampment where we were shown how they lived? No, she said: it was when I turned on the GPS in the car. And it does indeed work.
More tomorrow. This was an unplanned weekend but it's a fun one. I may not get the YouTube videos up till tomorrow or so.
The reenactor in the pic with Tam has obviously lost his helmet and musket to a Virginia plunderer, by the way.
.
There was an encampment as well so we spent some time watching the reenactors; Sarah's seen reenactors doing later periods but the 1600s stuff was a bit new for all of us. We have a friend who does 18th century and have seen a fair number of civil war reenactments, but the 17th century stuff was different enough to be in
teresting -- although Sarah declared that the battle part "stunk," she showed interest in visiting the encampment beforehand.Reenactors of course can never recreate the past, which really is and always remains another country; a reminder of this came at the end of the battle when a group of girls in bikinis, possibly from the college adjacent or from a boat on the river, wandered through the reenactment area, in rather stark contrast to the guys in 17th century halberds and helmets. I have no idea what the girls were doing there (it was a bit warm but still October) but it made for considerable comment. [UPDATE: It belatedly occurred to me the next day that this could have been a deliberate college prank, showing up in bikinis -- I don't think any were in one-piece suits -- at a 1600s reenactment. Assuming college students still do stunts like they used to.] [UPDATE 2: When I mentioned this to Tam she said, "Sure, I figured it was a prank all along. They were all in black, skimpy suits. What else could it be?" Okay, I'm slow, but I got there eventually.] The pirates, having been repelled, retreated in the same direction as the girls, but that may have been coincidence. It would have made a great picture but it happened too quickly and I had the camera turned off.
The 17th century reenactors, like civil war reenactors, tend to be on the heavy-set side: rather more so than I suspect the first settlers of Lord Baltimore's proprietary really were. (The movies "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals" used renenactors for battle scenes, but some of them look a lot better fed than your average Confederate infantryman.)
More on the day in a bit. As usual I don't post pictures of Sarah's face on the blog to respect her privacy.
A bit later: Although I knew Sarah hadn't enjoyed the "battle" that much (there weren't that many reenactors and 17th century firelocks take a long time to reload, so the musketry was scattered at best), I asked her what she had enjoyed most about the day: was it the reenactors' encampment where we were shown how they lived? No, she said: it was when I turned on the GPS in the car. And it does indeed work.
More tomorrow. This was an unplanned weekend but it's a fun one. I may not get the YouTube videos up till tomorrow or so.
The reenactor in the pic with Tam has obviously lost his helmet and musket to a Virginia plunderer, by the way.
.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment