What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

[Charles Heath]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Noah, the "wagon train" hobby is a thing unto itself, and one of the fellows over by Sharpsburg and his family go for these events on a regular basis. If you were at the A2003 NPS LH, you probably met him. What you might want to do is mention your interest to Terre, as she has a mighty fine oxhandler in her covey of civilians these days, and it is my understanding he takes off for extended periods of time. Those events are out there, but like the handcart events Liz mentions, sorting out the history lite versions from what this end of the hobby would rather have may be somewhat difficult.

As far as western fort events go, don't overlook the General Miles Marching & Chowder Society. Some great folks are involved with that rather low profile group, of course they aren't really civilian or CW timeframe either.

[LindaTrent]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

There's a lady who contacted me off list who is having trouble getting her account activated, but she's working on some sort of small wagon train across original trails next summer. They're planning on going from "South Pass, or from the last Platte crossing to Independence Rock, and hoping to have 4 or 5 wagons, and cover 40 miles in 3 days. She said that some scenarios could include people going off to the gold fields, especially to Montana.

The event is going to be kept small, and she "can't promise people staying in 1st person - the folks with the wagons are hit and miss on that, and if we want wagons, they've got to be there."

She said in addition to the wagon train they also do a small event at Ft. Bridger, and another at Ft. Laramie.

I'm not sure about posting something here from a person who can't get their account activated, but she knows Liz, so I'll go ahead and post the following in its entirety.

The great thing about the trails is that everyone is having a common experience, yet they can bring their own individual impressions and adapt it to the trails. It can be set in the '60s so CW reenactors can do it easily. The variety of people and their reasons for being there are pretty darn vast and makes for great interactions as groups met and formed new trains along the trail. Cool stuff!!!

BTW, I came back to add that she did say that one doesn't have to ride the wagons. She personally prefers to walk, which is what I would prefer as well. She said this event was planned for the summer of 07, but had to be postponed due to school schedules. But Liz was talking it up to me and Hank and I were truly interested, and I still am. :tounge_sm

Respectfully submitted by
Linda Trent
in behalf of Janet Wragge.

[NoahBriggs]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

I noticed there was a continuing "Go West" theme running through the thread. I am truly interested in doing Westward Trek Of Some Kind; the question is deciding on which delectable to select from this mouth-watering buffet table, and scheduling it far enough in advance to be able to save enough money and time off to travel.

Rather than call this What would you like to see in 08 or 09? I'd relabel it "Events I Must Try Once Before I Die."

On a smaller scale - set up some sort of casino, and play with funny money. (Taking time to investigate local gambling and "we are simulating gambling" laws first.) www.pharobank.com sells quality pharo gaming products and a good chuck-a-luck board.

[Drygoods]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Good Day All,

Well, just because I live in the West doesn't mean that I think we should strictly turn the thread in this direction. As I said, if wishes were horses, I'd like to attend an event say some site with a large boarding house where I could show up and find everything period furniture, without electric or running water, and see cooking in the kitchen and laundry boiling out in the dependancy (scullery or whatnot). And let's not forget the servants, have someone else do the cooking, dishes, and laundry, plus tidy the water closet. I don't know why, but I always end up being the servant doing those chores:cry_smile, so for once, I'd like to be the guest!:D:D I suppose what I'm really looking for is a nice period vacation. Can we do one of those nice hotel water spas with LH?

[ElizabethClark]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

I'll have to go see if I can streamline things for Janet... and yep, she's a good one. :) Really a hoot in person, too, and very determined on research.

One nifty thing about the Western experience is that it's one background option for a lot of folks in the 60s; the trails and emigration opened in the 40s, and it was definitely a two-way process--people didn't just emigrate one direction. Between overland and water routes, land rushes, mineral rushes, trade options, the possibilities of a person in the East having had a Western adventure at some point in the previous decade are interesting.

[NoahBriggs]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Can we do one of those nice hotel water spas with LH?

This idea was kicked around a couple years back. Unfortunately the spas are too modern; or if they do have period ambiance it will take a lot of negotiations to get them to remove the modern stuff.

Just grapevine, not gospel.

I would love to be a guest at a spa. Hydrotherapy is a different thing altogether.

[John-Owen Kline]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Garrison B. was looking over my shoulder at this at lunch today and we agreed that a wing hunt of some sort would be great.

Beall's extended family owns a big parcel of timber and fields across Mill Creek near Bentonville and that combined with the neighbors and the Neuse Game Lands would provide thousands of acres. There isn’t a house or paved road in sight for miles. Quail on the high banks or Wood Duck in the low grounds. We have been hunting there with 18th century technology for a few seasons and have always had fun and decent luck. Upgrading a half century or so would be easy for us.


There are plenty of dogs and ponies too if someone has some period carts.

[MissMaggie]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

I think I'd mostly like to see an event where nothing weird or crazy is intended to happen. I believe it was Mr. Briggs (forgive me if I'm wrong) who tossed out the idea of a week in a town where people just live everyday life. Sure, its not amazingly interesting or fun, but it is real life. Sometime I wonder if we, as living historians, get caught up in creating our own entertainment by putting on events that center around once in a lifetime occurrences. We would be better served by spending some time doing the same thing day in and day out that normal people in the period did. Wake up, wash up, cook breakfast, do chores, cook lunch, do some more chores, maybe go out shopping or visiting, make dinner, so some more chores go to bed. Thats what normal life is after all. Its all put into some kind of harsh perspective when you start thinking about what you've done in the last month. Personally, I've worked, gone grocery shopping, Spent two days doing stuff with friends and then one morning working with a teacher at school. I may have gone too see a movie but I don't remember when or what it was. If thats what my life is like in the 21st century where I have a car, the internet, a credit card and lots of free time, can you imagine what excitement the average women of the period had in her life.

I don't mean to turn this into a discussion about what we should be looking for in events. Just stating why I really like the idea of just living a dull boring, uneventful week in a typical period setting.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Agreed with Maggie. For one, I feel at this stage I can't really comment anymore on what I'd like to see in an event because what I want won't happen. My days of reenacting has been significantly reduced to real life requirements and necessities.

However, the best event I ever did was a 6 hour event at forum member (and dear friend and former moderator), Kathryn Coombs' 1859 home, Cleydael (www.cleydael.org). The scenario for the event was an 1862 meeting of local ladies to discuss the benefits of becoming a soldiers' aid society and sending goods to the front. At the end of the day some staged photos were taken (http://www.agsas.org/pastevents/phot...ewingday.shtml) but during the course of the day everything was as it may have been in Feb. 1862. A late snow also assisted in the stillness of the day, no phone (despite it being her home), etc. During the course of the day there was a mid-morning tea, dinner (i.e., lunch), and a close of the day coffee/tea. The ladies chatted during the day about their sewing, knitting, and whether it was feasible to organize a soldiers' aid society. Meanwhile, I portrayed one of the Stuart family slaves. Throughout the day I served the tea, coffee, cookies, and the stew meal. There was powdered lemonade made and I shoved about dishes and silverware. It was a typical day in the life of an enslaved domestic servant. During the day, rarely was I spoken to, my opinion not asked on whether there should be an aid society or not (I don't even remember what the characters gathered decided); I had to please everyone, set two tables for probably 10 folks, etc. Wartime yes, but nothing exciting like troops were coming or did come.

At day's end I was dehydrated, had eaten alone in another room hurriedly to come back and wait on those gathered, and generally everyone there got a feeling for what it was like to be a slaveholder and to be the slave.

I'd like to have that again but the problem is that I can't get enough fellow black people together to have a household of even 5 domestic servants and certainly most historic house museums do not allow people to sit on original furnishings, eat off original and reproduction plates and silverware, and move around objects to clean, etc.

[Cottoncarder]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

We have done a fort event here in Texas using one of the more remote forts. So remote some, including me, could not get to it due to flooding. However, we would like to do this again next spring.

Annette,
Please keep me posted on anything of this nature you may be doing in Texas. Here is another possibility that might be a bit more accessible than the one you described and holds my particular interest due to family history. My own gg grandfather served as foreman on the jury that tried the three chiefs for the Warren Wagon Train Massacre. This was the only time in US history where Native Americans were tried in court for depredations. The court house in Jacksboro is chocked full of primary records and first hand accounts of this historical event.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/fort_richardson/

I haven't been out to the fort in many, many years and it was prior to when they put in the hiking and esqestrian trails but there are plenty of buildings that are in good shape.

[annmaddox]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

I would love a seashore outing.
We ladies are making our bathing suits for a funtime for ourselves, but I think after reading the thread on men's bathing suits & seeing engravings it would be a grand time! I can only imagine the stares when everyone else is in bikinis, etc.
Being in sunny SC helps.

Ann Maddox
Palmetto Soldiers' Relief Society
Ferguson's Artillery

[Charles Heath]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

I don't mean to turn this into a discussion about what we should be looking for in events. Just stating why I really like the idea of just living a dull boring, uneventful week in a typical period setting.

This is probably not mentioned simply because so many people have done this so many times before. Perhaps not for a week, but certainly a day or three at a time. Spending time tending tobacco, corn, cotton, flax, wheat, or whatever pretty much runs into a jumble, as do the animal husbandry chores, or working in the barn repairing tools on a rainy day, or sweating in the forge. Those opportunities abound.

At the last Living History Guild's "Retreat from Rude's Hill" event last year, it was nice to set up housekeeping in the small house on aptly named Thornapple Hill, improve the outhouse, snap beans, and do a few chores to fill the day. The two other available houses (one just a hut) went unused due to lack of civilian interest in the region. I would have enjoyed spending a week there clearing overgrowth, and rebuilding stone fences.

[Annette Bethke]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Annette,
Please keep me posted on anything of this nature you may be doing in Texas. Here is another possibility that might be a bit more accessible than the one you described...

Fort Richardson is great; I think we are looking at Fort McKavitt.

[Paris-Lynne Graham]

Re: What would you like to see in 08 or 09?

Maybe the "everyday" events do abound but I've not been blessed enough to get to one yet. I think that would be a great experience. Something not scary or loaded with drama, nothing to frighten little people. Sign me up!
Paris Graham
mom to 8 little (and not so little) people