Welcome to my Reenacting page
It was 1987 and my wife and I were visiting Colonial Williamsburg on Labor Day weekend. We chose that day because there was a special event, Public Times. We discovered all these people in 'old' clothing, sleeping in tents right in the middle of Williamsburg. We asked who they were, and found out they were volunteers, who did this for fun, and some were from Maryland! So what if my wife had had enough camping as a Girl Scout Leader. I still liked camping! And I liked history. And they were cooking over open fires (I like food). And they were carrying these really neat old guns. My wife heard that whooshing sound as I was sucked in right there!
So now I'm a member of two reenactment units. It's not too bad. I'm holding the line at only two units. I'm a member of Maryland Company Wayne's Light Infantry Corp, recreating the Maryland company in the corps of light infantry in the Continental army under George Washington in the year 1779, and more recently a member of Ship's Company, a naval reenactment group.
So I march in a couple of parades a year, and spend a weekend doing guard duty for General Washington in Williamsburg, and face the British army in combat a few times a year, and row a gun barge occasionally, and compete in an 18th century drill competition, and defend Philadelphia from the invading British and their Hessian allies, and later try to drive them out of Philadelphia, and practice my gun drill with a cannon, and repair my shoes by firelight, and sleep on a bed of straw in a canvas tent. Doesn't everyone want to do these things?