Category: Living History

Room, Officers’, for the use of.

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History6 Comments

Sometimes I feel like a third wheel at Rev War events. There is not always a lot for women to do besides chores, and the public often ignore us. Still, there is one maxim I know to be true: if you’re bored, work.

Thus, when I found myself drifting off Saturday, I started dinner. The best part was where I got to make dinner: in a chamber off the main room of the Temple at the New Windsor Cantonment. These two rooms were occupied by the 10th Mass this year. Last year, the unfinished room had been the scene of Dirt Stew.

Cutting vegetables on a table was a major upgrade; last year, I think I used the kettle lid, the floor being too gritty even for me.

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It’s End of Stored Root Vegetable season here, so largish carrots and parsnips went into the pot, along with potatoes, onions, and a cooked chicken disjointed by hand (a task I have experience in).

This year, we brought the only iron we own, a small trivet-like stand to put the big kettle on; the little one went on bricks from the Temple’s other fireplace. Was that slim piece of iron wrong? Probably, but in a place where we can’t dig a kitchen or make a fire outdoors, we compromised in the name of keeping supper unspilled.

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Why no fires outdoors? Red flag warnings, due to high winds and low RH. That all hobbies will be affected by climate change was clear on Saturday, as we discussed invasive species, transporting wood across state lines, and various site rules on using brush to build shelters. It’s not just about digging fire pits or kitchens and archaeology anymore.

Surreal School

On By kittycalashIn Events, Living History, Reenacting2 Comments
On the King's Highway, behind Knox's HQ
On the King’s Highway, behind Knox’s HQ

The School of Instruction is always interesting, and this year was no exception. One of my favorite activities is walking with the troops (well, behind). The experience is usually surreal, and the walk we took behind Knox’s Headquarters met expectations.

Clash of the Time Periods
Clash of the Time Periods

Knox’s Headquarters was a new location for us, with new activities: we played a Jingling Match, which resulted in as much giggling as jingling, and felt like the Walking Dead met the 18th Century.

Jingling without Giggling is the hard part
Jingling without Giggling is the hard part

The game is pretty simple: mark out an area, blindfold as many as are willing to play, and set one without blindfold loose. The object is to touch the person ringing the bell, and it is a hilarious and merry game indeed, though I do agree with Mr McC that playing with a number of men full in their cups, or at certain sites (Stony Point comes to mind) would be too dangerous.
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Still, it’s simple and fun, if a little Kubrickian when you first tie on the blindfold. The person who catches the jingler is the next one to taunt the blindfolded.

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Next stop? Bell research, of course. I definitely want to play this in Newport later this summer.

Battle Road Made a Man 

On By kittycalashIn Events, Living History, personal, Reenacting9 Comments

(with apologies for the child-centered content.)

Well, sort of.  The Young Mr sported a brand-new, all-hand-sewn frock coat and breeches, as well as brand new size 15 shoes (thank you, USPS Priority  Mail and Robert Land’s stock of the rara avis size 15.)  He was spotted in photos that were shared with me later, and there he is, front and center, in his new, blue wool broadcloth suit. (I do like the side eye Mr C is giving as he checks on the second row.)

When he was dressed on Saturday, the Young Mr had a real presence. There is something about a suit that changes a man– well, in this case, a boy into a man. On the ride home, he told his father, “Now that I’m growing up, it feels weird to call you mom and dad. I think I should call you by your first names.” (I’ll wait here while you finish laughing. Yes, it is funny. No, we did not laugh at him.)

It’s a curious idea to us now, marking transitions with clothes. For some, coming of age is marked with a car or at least a driver’s license. For others, it may be a first job, or apartment. But once, stages were marked in clothing, as boys moved from gowns to breeches, and later from dresses to short pants to long pants.

 Our clothing is so much less formal, that we are less accustomed in most cases to seeing men in suits. Even as young as I was in those last “Mad Men” years, I remember more formal times, and shopping with my parents, seeing coats marked up in chalk and thread for my father, and the ranks of shirts and heavy-hangered trousers and coats at Brooks Brothers downtown in Chicago.  (I went there once as a teenager with a friend to buy a present for her father; we were not warmly welcomed in our punk clothes, but the glass cases were unforgettable.)

For the Young Mr, that kind of formality is lost. There’s not much point in buying him a modern suit: he’s all t-shirts and hoodies and hand-me-downs from a friend at work he’s rapidly growing past. He’d never wear a suit, except as he steps into the past, and his fittings happen in private homes or workshops, and not in front of a three-panel mirror.

The Young Mr steps into the past to step into adulthood, and comes back to a present where he has many more years and rites of passage before he will truly be an adult.

Waistcoat Wanting? Workshop!

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, History Space, Living History, making things, Museums, Reenacting2 Comments
Gentlemen of Rhode Island
Gentlemen of Rhode Island

I managed, with sore fingers and considerable snake-eyed concentration, to get breeches and coats finished enough to send these two off to Battle Road better dressed than ever before. I’m pleased indeed with how the blue suit turned out, and planned to make a blue wool waistcoat to complete the set. Except…the Young Mr prefers some contrast in his clothing (a change from his prior preference for complete camouflage) and now wishes for white. I ask you.

Mr S is need of a new waistcoat himself, and he’s registered for a workshop with Henry Cooke to make a new waistcoat for himself. He was awfully taken with Mr B’s clothes two Saturdays ago, when he dressed as George Claghorn, the Naval contractor who supervised the building of the USS Constitution

Plush. No, really, it's made of plush *and* it's fancy, at least for us.
Plush. No, really, it’s made of plush.

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L’Hermione is coming to Boston and Newport in July, and then we have An Afternoon in 1790 planned, with What Cheer Day not far behind, so there’s plenty of need for new waistcoats in a variety of styles– 1780, 1780, 1800 each have their variations.

Why not join us May 2nd and 3rd in Providence, and make your own fabulous waistcoat? There’s still a space or two left! Register here.