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Offline Flamingos.r.us.

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Getting ready for Locust Grove
« on: October 22, 2007, 07:23:08 PM »
 :PReally excited about Locust Grove in Louisville, Ky. this weekend.  All the apprehensions, though.  It's a new event for us but know quite a few people who are attending.  Just the regular fall check list of what ifs... what if it rains...what if its cold...what if we forget our tent stakes... what if I forget the ONE essential item of clothing (stockings, glasses, shift, gasp!! clean underwear)
Anyone else out there with similar tales?  It's just me and my hubby, and I get worked up worrying about bringing everything just for the two of us.. I can't imagine being responsible for kids and all their needs!
One of the best time of the events?  That first few minutes in the car, knowing everything is packed and we are ON OUR WAY.  Second best?  Camp is set up and I know I have a cozy bed all ready for the night (jammies tucked safely under the pillow).
Nicest time, Saturday afternoon, looking forward to Saturday night's festivities ;)
the flamingos are my minions.

Offline Codybear

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2007, 03:02:15 PM »
Is Locust Groove a pretty big event.  I live maybe a couple hours away but dont know yet if i will be able to attend.  We did attend Feast of the Hunters Moon and had a blast.  I'm still drinking homemade rootbeer. 

Offline Rockman

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2007, 05:53:46 PM »
Not sure, but I think this isw the third or fourth year for it.  The word is, it's been getting bigger each year and it rivals whart the Mansker's Station event was in it's heyday.  Plenty of quality sutlers & crafters, if you have an 18th c. shopping list. It wouldn't be a waste of your time.  Especially if you're that close to it.
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Offline Bonnie aka blnzrfn

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2007, 10:23:06 PM »
I wish we could go but our bank account is bust  lol    My mom , one event  had all of our gear packed and made sure all of us had our pack baskets(always put in last so we could change first thing) got all the way to Battle Ground and found out she left her's by the Foot of her bed(she could have killed us LOL) .She was not a Happy Camper had to put an outfit together with help from all over camp...It turned into one of those "Remember the Time" stories we all laugh about..I miss the events at Battle Ground (Indiana)      Well have fun everyone ;D
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Offline Flamingos.r.us.

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2007, 10:44:27 PM »
Your mom left her pack basket full of her period clothes?  Isn't that like the nightmare we all have of going to work totally naked? :laugh: :laugh: My friends two weeks ago went to a 17th C. event at St. Mary's City, Md. and forgot the tent stakes.  Did I mention that their tent is a one pole marquee that uses rope tension on the sides?(i.e.  stakes are VERY important)
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Offline Bonnie aka blnzrfn

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2007, 04:54:01 PM »
LOL yeah,She was mad as a wet hen.... I've forgetton stakes before that stinks .. I have a small wedge so I was able to borrow 4  from the nice guy next to us LOL Ive forgetton my cook pot , our cooler ans yes even under things (god bless Wal-Mart) you know little things before...When it was just me & Eli we would just wear our outfits there so there was one less thing to forget  + it was funny to see the people give us strange looks...we always had fun I realy miss camping.....well talk at you later
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Offline Sturmkatze

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2007, 05:09:43 PM »
When it was just me & Eli we would just wear our outfits there so there was one less thing to forget  + it was funny to see the people give us strange looks...
Try doin gthat in WWI or WWII stuff.... :-? Yes, I know, I'm bad  >:D
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Offline Flamingos.r.us.

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2007, 07:00:38 PM »
I have alot of respect for you guys that do WWI and WWII, but I gotta tell you.  I do home care for the elderly and hospice work.  I have come across a number of  WWII vets that are willing to talk about their experiences.  One gentleman was a photographer in the south pacific for the army(?)  He was very happy to share his photos and experiences.  I think he was happy to have someone new listen to his stories.  He even had a photo of the monument where Ernie Pyle was killed.
One hospice gentleman was on morphine by the time I was in the home, so he was pretty non-responsive by then (thank god--cancer) but his wife told me he was a medic, and three days after D-Day, he was captured and spent 3 months (or was it 6?) in a german POW camp.  He was very willing to share his story when he came back.  It was that thought that helped me through the experience of caring for him.  He would moan when I moved him, and I had to tell myself that I was helping make him comfortable and that I couldn't do anything to hurt him more than that had happened to him in the past.
So, my moral.  Even though the shock effect is kind of fun showing up at Wal-Mart in uniform, do be gentle and respectful to the elderly who you may encounter (esp. if going to Wal-Mart--you can't avoid them  >:D)  You really don't know who is a vet, and it may still effect them
the flamingos are my minions.

Offline Sturmkatze

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2007, 10:59:45 PM »
Looook, I'm not out to offend people and I DO explain it nicely when asked. Hell, at reenactments, it's the GERMANS you see hanging out and talking to vets.. the Amis are too busy taking off their kit and drinking their "buttwiper." Strange huh?! Sad too. I do German because it's harder. I've done Soviet too. If I were starting WWI again, TODAY, knowing what I know today, I'd be French.

It's an impression... if we forget their history, it dies.  :'(
Marsh
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Offline Flamingos.r.us.

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2007, 12:20:35 AM »
I'm not trying to be harsh.  I really hope you didn't take offense.  I really do have a lot of respect for those of you who do fairly recent conflicts.  It's very difficult and very much a tightwire that you walk.  I just know that I have alot of respect for our vets and I think it must be difficult for them.  I have friends that are Vietnam vets that have never talked.  I find it very difficult to deal with the 20th century conflicts I think because there are  still survivors.  I guess we all have our limits.  I have heard countless times from others that they could never do hospice work.  I know that's something I can deal with.  I do 18th c. stuff because it is very unlikely that someone will come up and say "I take offense to that".  I guess sometimes I'm too PC.  Too many years working for the gov't I guess.
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Offline Sturmkatze

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #10 on: October 25, 2007, 01:09:12 AM »
Nah, I'm not offended... I've heard it before. Ther's nothing you can do. I don't do Vietnam reenacting, not because I'm offended, but because there were no fat, white, blue-eyed VC... C'est La Vie!

As for no one getting worked up about earleir periods.. look at Civil War Reenactors... some STILL get all worked up (for real)... you just gotta do what you gotta do.
Marsh Wise
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My blog (boring!!): www.reppledepple.com
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-Legio IX Hispana www.legioix.org

Alteris renumera duplum de quoquo tibi numeraverunt

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress... But then I repeat myself.

Offline Rockman

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #11 on: October 25, 2007, 08:58:25 AM »
Yeah, I remember a few guys in our Confederate artillery unit, back when I first started this hobby, that would get all fired up when the subject of Sherman's march to the sea came up.... for them, it was as if the event just happened the week before.... I guess how one perceives things depends on how good one's reality barometer is functioning.
Howdy there!  I'm Oedipus Tex! --You may have heard of my brother Rex....

Offline 416RifleRgt

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #12 on: October 25, 2007, 09:55:18 AM »
I find it very difficult to deal with the 20th century conflicts I think because there are  still survivors. 

And these folks make modern era reenacting all worth it. 

At a round table we did in the Twin Cities they had brought in 3 soviet WWII vets to speak.  In the time before the actual start we are all running around, I was looking for the other reenactors, as I exited the auditorium I turned the corner and saw a elderly women in a blue suit all covered with medals and awards.  I knew she was one of the vets.  The second she saw me in my 1941 soviet officers uniform her eyes got real big and a massive smile crept onto her face.  I knew that instant when she saw me a flood of memories had come over her.

It turned out she was a Lieutenant in a communications unit at Stalingrad.  She had served near the oil storage tanks, and saved the radio equipment when they burned and her comrades dove into the Volga.  She hadn't seen those war time uniforms in 60+ years.

After the lecture, we were waiting for some one on one time with the vets.  The local papers were interviewing them in a closed room.  A soviet colonel snuck out of those interviews and came to talk to us.  Oh the stories he had.  We hung on every word he said and he of course was amazed that there were red army reenactors in the U.S.  He wanted to talk to us more than the papers.

Then there is the german vets we run into on the Midwest circuit.  Ed & Wolfgang.  Both were captured by the Soviets and spent time in a soviet POW camp.  Not a pleasant experience for those unfamiliar with the subject.  Both had no problems with the Soviet reenactors, and the stories Ed had.  His escape from the kessel at Stalingrad.  His time in the POW camp until 1948.  So many stories and he loved telling them.  Especially his observations about the Red Army Frontoviks.

I can't tell you how many U.S. veterans talk to us too.  Their stories of when they met their first russians and what it was like.  I spent an evening at a Civil War event listening to the stories a WWII PTO vet told me when he found out I reenacted WWII in addition to CW.

Now that I added cold war reenacting, I am getting a Vietnam vets that have stories just as good and amazing as the WWII veterans.

Too me modern era reenacting is far more rewarding than CW.  It is the fact that the veterans are around and will tell you their stories.  You just need to remember tact and courtesy.  I hate seeing when a reenactor corrects a veteran.  Yes the dates, or whatever minute details may be wrong.  But they lived what we are reenacting and deserve some latitude.

Now we have the event at Branson coming up in November.  It's a national veterans reunion, and they are expecting something like 50,000 vets.  I wish I had time to listen to each and every one of them.   ;D

-dave
« Last Edit: October 25, 2007, 09:58:09 AM by 416RifleRgt »
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Offline Rockman

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #13 on: October 25, 2007, 11:58:59 AM »
Well Dave, be sure to get some of the great stories I know that you'll hear at your event, down on paper if you can.  You'll likely hear of things that aren't even touched on in the history books.  That's what's great about what you WWII & later period guys can do.  -Actually interact with the guys that actually did all that stuff.  I'd say that more recent era reenactors have an edge over the rest of us that do time frames out of living memory.  --You have a LIVING connection!  How cool is that?
Howdy there!  I'm Oedipus Tex! --You may have heard of my brother Rex....

Offline Codybear

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Re: Getting ready for Locust Grove
« Reply #14 on: October 25, 2007, 02:41:43 PM »
Nice about the soviets in the twin cities.  I look forward to hopefully reading about some of these interactions with the actual vets.  Please keep us posted.  My uncles are vets of WWII, korea and vietnam and they tell me they are proud of their service time and seem to like to spin a tale of heroic deeds now and then.  We are always left wondering at the authenticity of some of their tales but they are great stories no matter.  My grandmother, who raised me, tells me that when seeing a movie during WWII, she actually seen her brother on the news reel before the movie.  She was so excited that she ran home to tell everybody of her sighting, missing the movie.  The theatre owner, who new she hadnt enough money to get back in for a time, stopped by the familys house and gave her a pass to get back in at a latter date.