Happy Birthday America And A Story.........

Happy Birthday to the greatest country in the world, the good old U.S. of A.

By special request here's a story that might amuse you on this Independence day.

As you know, I am a reenactor and living historian and focus on the American colonial time period. My normal portrayal is that of a Physician with the British Army.

A few years ago, I was asked to help with a reenactment of a King's Birthday celebration at Ninety-Six National Historic Site in South Carolina. For those that don't know much about Ninety-Six, it is located in the north-west corner South Carolina, what was called the back country in the colonial period. The land in the area hasn't changed much in over 240 years,and part of the charm is that the site IS so far off the beaten path that you have to really want to go there. it isn't like some other places that are convenient to stop at because they are on the way to someplace else or it has clean restrooms. Ninety-Six is special also because it was the location of the longest siege that took place in the American Revolution. Ninety-Six was the primary British military base in the back country and held a vary large garrison of troops. The American rebels attacked the town and were held off by the British and loyalist troop for 28 days.

Because of this history, it was thought that this would be a perfect place to have a King's birthday celebration. In the colonial period, the King's Birthday was one of the biggest holidays that was celebrated. There were dances, parties, military demonstrations,bell ringing, shooting off guns,and all sorts of festivities and merriment. This holiday fell on June 4th, so we picked the weekend closest to that date and planed the event. The time came and we had the event and every thing went swimmingly. We had close to 50 red coat wearing reenactors who did musket demonstrations, gave various talks, demonstrated camp life and interacted with the public. We also had a period dance and dinner party.

As I said, everything went swimmingly, but as normal when I am involved, a dark cloud did appear in the sky in the middle of the event. I was approached by a slightly over middle-aged lady who had just a bit of fire in her eye. She button-holed me and and asked me if I was in charge. I told her that I was coordinating the event, and asked if I could be of service to her. She told me that she had a serious complaint to make about the event. When I asked her what the problem was, she told me that she had been all over the park and hadn't seen one thing about Elvis. I was so shocked, that I didn't know what to say to her. She continued on about false advertising and wanted to know who was in charge. At that time I noticed my good friend, the chief Ranger of the site was walking through the encampment so I pointed him out to the lady and took my leave of her. When I next saw her, she had my friend trapped in a corner and was lecturing him on Elvis, false advertising and talking to her congress critter. I must admit that it was a bit of a dirty trick to get him involved. But I just couldn't deal with that lady with anything close to a straight face.

Ah, the joys of dealing with a educated public................[grin]