I was never a history scholar, but somehow history has crept into my psyche as part of how I observe and live life. I’m not just talking about historical events, but rather history’s presence in our daily lives. We see it in architecture, in landscapes, food, languages, fashion, literature. Everywhere. It is always with us.
If there’s a chance to go see a historic battlefield, or a beautiful house, or a reenactment, or a museum exhibit on traditional Samurai warrior dress, I’m there. And it isn’t just the tingle of fascination as I soak in the history I’m seeing, it’s the – always – utter delight I experience at the reactions of the people around me, my children’s commentary, conversations with interpreters and living historians, and, of course, the reenactor.
Me in the background to the left at the jail (now called the Public Gaol, we wouldn’t have been able to pronounce that) during a school field trip to Colonial Williamsburg, ca. 1965. I am either looking down at an old Brownie camera, or counting change to buy rock candy. The stocks were a great place to lock your friends in and then leave them.
Any fun I poke is all done with the deepest affection and I hope all will understand the humor I experience in telling my stories on this blog. And of course it won’t all be humor, but as often as not my observations on anything that might strike my fancy.
I’ll end this post with a picture of my brother “Nelson” (all names are being changed for the moment to protect the innocent). He loves history too, but he actually gets to be history by playing movie parts. Is he a reenactor? No, hell no, he’s a bona fide actor! That is, when the movie people want a 19th- or 18th- century face that can ride a horse.
“Nelson,” aka Paul Revere, astride Polly on the set of a production about the same being made for a new museum in Boston, opening this summer. More on this later.
