Looking Ahead to Improvement

[Charles Heath]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Funny thing is, I agree with Sam about the general culinary aspects of the hobby, but not for reasons that may be so readily obvious, but that post is for another time.

[JimConley]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Kevin,
I don't think that Sam is saying that cooking practices need to be largely improved, rather I think that he's offering up just one idea that he and his pards have incorporated into improving their experience. Personally, I feel that it is the smaller things, like cooking, that help simplify efforts in the field and provide a good grasp on living the life of a soldier. And, with that as a general premise, I'll offer up my thoughts.

Sometimes I think that we just try and squeeze too much into the 36hrs we're in the field. Sure, I'm all about marching, being woken up in the middle of the night for picket duty, running around the woods with nothing but hard crackers and tobacco as sustenance, but I don't feel that every event should necessarily keep the participants doing something at all times. Was it tough being a CW soldier? Damn right it was. But I get the idea that we do so much in the short time out in the field that we don't get to appreciate the things that we're doing. I look back at every event I've been to with at least one good memory about capturing a realistic moment, but I also feel that we could simply our efforts at a few events here and there and walk away with a better experience.

For example, and since we're on the subject of cooking, why not have an immersive weekend (first person being at the event's discretion) where you have company drill for a few hours in the morning, then turn the rank and file loose in their messes to practice mess and camp duties? Anybody can read a few chapters from Hartack And Coffee and have some idea of what camp life was like. And I say that first person would be optional because I don't feel it is a necessity to immerse yourself in what you're doing. Yeah, if you prefer to go first person and you have a group of guys that can carry it on without sounding hokey, all the better (Sadly, most of my surroundings with first person always entailed a few guys that make me feel like I'm watching Ron Maxwell's Gettysburg all over again). But you can also leave modern slang and the internet at your car, share some research, read period accounts to your messmates and still walk away having had a great time. And there is so much to do within camp life alone, as our example here, that you wouldn't feel like people would be bored or they weren't doing enough. I don't think we have enough weekends like that. And, I think that's what Sam was getting at. You don't have to try and recreate a major historic event in 36hrs, but focus on what research and accounts make most available and do a few things the right way rather than doing 50 different things that could have come off better. When you try to do too much, you get a vague idea of what it is that you're trying to recreate. But, when you focus on just a few things, you have more of an appreciation for what you're doing and a better understanding of what it might have been like.

One of my best experiences in the time I've been doing this was earlier this summer out in Virginia. We were doing some interpretive settings for pre-Gettysburg actions around Middleburg and Upperville, and I came away from that weekend having learned more and shared more than most of the events I've been to. In between programs and talking with folks coming in and out, I listened to a friend read accounts of what happened there, what the men we were portraying had to eat and how they prepared it, then actually doing it. Discussing accounts of uniforms, reproducing period letters and postage, and being able to show visitors a small aspect of a soldier's life in 1863 and explaining the significance of what happened there.

Instead of trying to cover a little bit of everything at one event, why not do just a few things better? And, if you walk away having really enjoyed yourself and appreciated what you did, that's more incentive to go out and do it again and try other things at the next one.

[Charles Heath]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Jim, I sure hope you signed up for a certain four day event coming up in February.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

why not have an immersive weekend (first person being at the event's discretion) ...

And I say that first person would be optional because I don't feel it is a necessity to immerse yourself in what you're doing.

The idea is good, but could we call it a camp of instruction? Or a progressive garrison event? Or anything but what it isn't?

Calling it an immersive event is like saying you don't have to march anyplace to have a campaign event. Or you can allow reenactors to come in polyester uniforms and still have a progessive event.

Sure, you can feel that way personally, but unfortunately, the meaning behind "immersion" is being lost.

"Immersion" events are about trying to "immerse" yourself in every aspect of the past, which includes leaving your modern perspective about the hobby of reenacting behind. If first person is optional, that means the event officially does allow modern talk and modern mindsets, or has a strange code of silence that prevents any talk of the past or future, and that means the event is deliberately set up to prevent people from "immersing" themselves naturally in the past.

I spent a cold night listening to someone blather loudly and endlessly about the history of woolen mills from a modern perspective, when I desperately wished I could find someone to talk to who was interested in what was actually happening around us on Thanksgiving Day of 1863. Trust me, the difference between "sharing some research" and immersion is obvious, if you've seen immersion.

If you don't want first person at this event because all you've seen is bad first person, then you're going to the wrong events, and that can be remedied by going to some real immersion events, without changing the definitions of words.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Dreamer42]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Kevin,
I agree that cooking skills are getting better - and, as you mentioned, based on what folks have been reading. You asked for our opinions - and I have noticed many, especially those relatively new to this side of reenacting, who really haven't developed the necessary skills. My guess is that it is because they don't do very much research and fail to learn from their pards. As our side of the hobby continues to GROW (I guess I should have been more specific to this point) it should be our responsibility to demonstrate the importance of camp fire cooking. Granted, I know I don't get to as many quality events as I'd like, but my unit is always striving for a more realistic portrayal of a soldier's life, and I feel this is one of those cheap ways one can improve his impression without spending a great deal of money.


Looking at the big picture...
Didn't notice it mentioned, but moving tacticals seem to be more realistic than static events. Pulling picket duty and using flankers because the enemy actually might probe your lines leaves a better experience for all.

- Jay Reid
Dreamer42

[Charles Heath]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Jay,

"Fieldcraft" is the word you are seeking. To borrow a phrase Hank Trent just coined, the "Polyester Progressives" have just about made fieldcraft a dirty word, and this runs counter to the philosophy where the better events should be both mentally and physically challenging. Every event does not have to be an Ironman competition, nor does it have to be yet another sappy episode of Survivor Man, however, working outside of our comfort zones is a good thing, and a modest challenge isn't going to kill most of us.

Thanks to Clint Eastwood, the maxim "improvise, adapt, and overcome" has become trite beyond belief, but part of the fun in the hobby is being handed a collection of unrelated foodstuffs and then coming up with something edible. The same goes for creating a bit of shelter in the face of inclement weather, and then being able to sleep through modest inconveniences. Get a good grip on the keyboard, and plant both feet firmly on the floor, because most of you remember your own dear sweet Momma using the term "roughing it." For some, I realize that means staying in a Holiday Inn Express, but for others the shared hardship breeds a common bond, and I don't mean needing a group hug when you learn your knapsack being at the bottom of the hill, or whining endlessly about fixing bayonets, or imagining the horrid taste of tin over bottled tap water, or becoming a sobbing mass of goo at the mere thought of ramming cartridges, or weeping over the sensation of tree bark rubbing against your third point of contact at the sinks. This is the very sort of crap that threatens to poison our end of the hobby.

I was tempted to write a long list of wondermus anecdotes about great things involving crappy weather, crappy food, and equally crappy sleeping conditions, and overcoming all of this in the company of great friends. Instead, take a long and loving look to the 2008 and 2009 events for future experiences of exhaustion, pain, cramped sleeping quarters, marching through swamps, dealing with heat, retracing original march routes, unsavory taste sensations, and all that happy hoohah.

The Great Carnac, for those of you old enough to remember him, has a few predictions from beyond the grave:

- Desiccated veggies will be in your future and in a big way, not once but maybe four times. Oh, Lord, have mercy on your tender bowels.

- Movement to contact, to borrow a modern phrase, through a swamp deep enough to require removal of cartridge boxes may be in your near future -- if the rain cooperates. It will rain at this event, and with great vigor. The experience will suck so much you will talk about it for years.

- Roasting on one side due to a bright cherry red stove overstoked to within an inch of being an iron furnace, and feeling a knife edge frozen draft on the other side, and learning how to chink logs in your sleep, and wishing you had just one more blanket to plug the hole.

- More fresh corpses than you want to deal with, and the suspended disbelief that goes with or without cooperation of mental faculties.

- Wondering why Doug Oakes seems to find hills in three states that only have up sides and no down sides. How is this possible year after year?

- Learning lutefisk is not regulated by the Patriot Act, but dearly wishing it was.

- Pie is timeless.

Now then, I guess we'll have to put up the annual poll and listen to the whining from the usual suspects about that, too. For the rest of you, see you at some great events!

[cap tassel]

Re: Portable First Persson- Rethinking the model

Consider keeping as close to your modern self as possible to enhance the comfort level of first person. Much conversation is naturally first person. For example all things related to camp set up, drill, food preparation etc. That is easy first person because no one has to work at it. Next if you simply eliminate modern history, politics, and re-enacting related stuff you are well on your way to staying in first person. Everyone out there loves history, just talking about pre Civil War events can fill much time. Many modern relationships fit just fine into first person also so it never hurts to talk about wives, family etc. Finally, just being quiet is fine also. These guys spent a lot of time together and would have been very comfortable being quiet around each other.
So my addition for the sake of argument expansion is not to shun your modern self when out in the woods. If a modern song pops into my head when on picket duty I just accept the fact that although the form of music is wrong, the concept of having popular music burst into the brain at any moment is a very period experience.

I went deeper with this than you intended but just hear me out and tell me what you think.

I understand where you're coming from and I appreciate it but I think it tends towards error initially because first person requires the most amount of research into areas of culture and sociology and these are probably the least studied, the insufficiently studied and even incorrectly studied. I've hardly ever been impressed with people's first person attempts. Some are over the top and others are understudied and you get the feeling that the person is presenting all they have as if it's from a script. For instance if someone wanted to be mean they could ask a few simple questions and destroy their impression on the spot. It doesn't come across as genuine but more importantly it doesn't serve to educate unless the observer is only interested in an artistic version of the past. It's more of a show than a tool.

I'm not saying I don't agree with you but only that a first person won't work until proper amount of solid study has been done for as much as it can be. I think if people early in the learning process are comfortable in believing they can learn the past by utilizing the present they'll only be treading water and not swimming but all the while believing that they're swimming because the surroundings look the same.

I think the primary hindrance is not insufficient learning but not learning how to learn. Let me put it this way - I believe most people who love and study history do it wrong. It's a matter of paradigm. They stand firmly in the present, cast a line back to 1861, hook the thing they're interested in, reel it back to the present day. That item has now been wrenched from its environment and removed from context. Sure knowledge can be gained by this method. But I see it as failing ourselves by making history static and not fluid as it happened. It may be just me but I think it shortchanges everything, the time spent researching, energy and critical thought. So to me the best way is to approach it is to go much farther back than what you're intending to study and learn history coming forward by putting your mind there. And always question if you went back far enough.

[RJSamp]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

- Learning lutefisk is not regulated by the Patriot Act, but dearly wishing it was.

So are we saying that a Scandinavian Christmas Holiday food was issued to soldiers during the ACW? Lye and Cod.....mmmmmm.

[redleggeddevil]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

So are we saying that a Scandinavian Christmas Holiday food was issued to soldiers during the ACW? Lye and Cod.....mmmmmm.

The only food known to man that washes the plate as you eat it.

[Silas]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Just because some folks have been in the hobby for a while doesn't mean they have a clue about how they should be doing things. We all develop bad habits which need to be rooted out periodically.

I'd be happy if the card swappers in superior kit would break the spine of a drill manual and walk through the school of the soldier. I shouldn't have to correct people at a good event like the Chickamauga LH about how to prime their muskets and how to arrange their feet for the different positions in the manual of arms. Same goes for stacking arms. If you're using Hardee's manual, your hands shouldn't be near the top bands. Without leverage, the Hardee stack is a tough nut to crack. Hint #1: crack the spine and see where the hands should be. Hint #2: if the rifle butts for the first two weapons are on the ground when trying to swing the third, you've got a problem which the manual says how to remedy.

The men in the ranks aren't the only ones who need to crack a spine. Sergeants and line officers need to examine the common manoeuvers in the school of the battalion and compare them to what is performed in the school of the company. The way things are performed in the school of the battalion are not necessarily performed the same way in the lower schools. With higher schools come higher expectations. Battalion drill isn't just for the field officers. It's for line officers and sergeants, too.

Every soldier needs to know how to perform the duties and responsibilities for his position as well as the next level above. When soldiers know a couple levels above the current position, that's a bonus.

[RJSamp]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

The only food known to man that washes the plate as you eat it.

Good point, and I hadn't even thought of the after effects of not cleaning a tin coated plate off........ our neighbors (Solberg; Norwegian) par boiled lutefisk....boiling is too aggressive.

I'm trying to envision serving Atlantic Cod soaked in lye to Germans in Mississippi in April......it's not registering.....

[SamuelCathey]

Re: Portable First Persson- Rethinking the model

You make sense. I didn't intend to diminish the importance of research but rather attempted to put forth an idea for making people more comfortable in what for most is an extremely uncomfortable situation. Just like a professional quarterback probably doesn't think about all the "research" he has done when throwing a football during a game, I think reenactors should get into a state of mind where the decades of CW research can just flow easily. Perhaps if they don't get too hung up on being in some particular persona they can relax a little. We've all read a lot of books but some have difficulty utilizing the knowledge they definitely have in first person situations. Of course studying antebellum history is crucial as well. It is quite helpful to have workable knowledge of how people lived in the 1830s-50s.
Ultimately there is no simple answer to this. Few people are comfortable trying to pretend to be in the past. Even professional actors in the movies generally fail and come off as some kind of stiff ultra-gentlemen. I hang out with folks who are experienced interpreters, museum professionals, teachers etc. and we have discussed first person at length. We have approached it from many angles over the last decade or so and have lately tried the approach I mentioned above with some success. At the moment we are accepting perhaps a greater degree of mistakes with the trade off of people acting more naturally which in the end gives the whole scene a more real feel. What we'll do in the future is anyone's guess.
Sam Cathey

[SamuelCathey]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

I think a lot of folks (including myself for many years) eat period foods, but often slip outside of strictly issue items. There are plenty of times when this is acceptable, but there are also numerous times when one should do a Federal event only carrying bacon, coffee, and crackers or a Confederate event carrying only flour and bacon. It is very fun to actually make tasty biscuits out of those ingredients as opposed to something gross that you eat to avoid starvation.
Sam Cathey

[NoahBriggs]

Re: Portable First Persson- Rethinking the model

I think reenactors should get into a state of mind where the decades of CW research can just flow easily. Perhaps if they don't get too hung up on being in some particular persona they can relax a little. We've all read a lot of books but some have difficulty utilizing the knowledge they definitely have in first person situations. Of course studying antebellum history is crucial as well. It is quite helpful to have workable knowledge of how people lived in the 1830s-50s.

This is what the immersionsts do. We don't lock ourselves into one impression; it denies the opportunity to research and discover new things. We take on different impressions, and research them in detail anywhere from a year to fifteen months in advance, acquire the material culture. Why? For our own satisfaction, for our constantly-expanding mental database of knowledge which helps improve our inpressions, and understanding of the antebellum era. I've learned more in the past three years than the fifteen previous, simply because I looked at the world through a Mex War veteran, an autistic farmhand, A CW veteran in 1888, a seedy thief and inn staff member, an anal-retentive inn staff member (not at the same event, you fool!), an assistant-surgeon at a variety of military events. The prior fifteen years? Infantry, with the same ho-hum battle scenarios and modern chit-chat around the fire at night. No wonder. You could smell the insidious stink of burnout embedded in my uniform.

[RJSamp]

Re: Looking Ahead to Improvement

Speaking of issued items.....

I'd love to see our generic Federal impression be upgraded over the coming seasons.....concentrate on acquiring what they were issued. Not what you can get by with or the third choice for an event's impression.....but what they were issued. Then we can conclusively/convincingly portray late fall through early spring (over coats), Parade or specialty unit (Frock Coat)....throw in a pair of Navy trowsers (early war 2nd WI, 2nd MN), a nice double bagged knapsack, and both a forage cap and a dress hat.....now we're cooking with sweet oil. I'll leave out the truly specialist impressions.....some of us own many uniforms, rifle muskets, bugles....to allow us to adjust our look to the Specific Event Impression....a more 'uniform' uniform look.

For those that don't think that the 'generic' Federal impression exists anymore, I'll go on record as stating that it does.....simply look at the Outpost III website impression posting, advice given on the Hard Case Boys Forum, and the impressions that showed up. The hard evidence is the number of Federals that wore the SAME fatigue blouse for both Outpost 2000 (7th Ohio) and Outpost 2007 (89th IL)....or wore a fatigue blouse because they weren't told to wear what They did, or didn't own what was issued to the PEC Federal infantryman (it costs tooo much is a red wine). Upwards of 90%+ of us should have been wearing Frock Coats.....over half of us weren't.....shame on us....and not enough great coats.

Time to improve. Time to acquire what they were issued.