The Pink Dress and East Harbor

I was psyched when I got home. I had to get a uniform and cooters (accoutrement), sell forty raffle tickets for the unit, make a ball gown for the next event on the schedule and pack and prepare for another summer as a counselor at the summer camp I worked for each year.

Right after Oregon my mother informed me that she, my step-sisters and step-father were planning on going to Boston to attend a family reunion and that I was invited to go with them. Seeing any part of my mother's side of the family was rare so I agreed. Between Mom and Dad, I had worked out a way to get the $200 fresh fish package that would include a kepi (hat), cotton shirt, sack coat, trousers, braces (suspenders), haversack, and leathers. Other than a gun, and a tent, this package would set me up for my reenacting career. While at my mother's house, waiting to head up to Boston, I called in my order. Immediately after divining that I was a female the person receiving my call asked how big the gentlemen was that I was calling the order in for. I let them believe what they liked, chuckling idly when they commented, "He's a big boy isn't he?"
My order would arrive at home before the next event on the schedule, I was told. We headed up to Boston, spent a few days visiting with family and friends and had a brief encounter with the eastern shore. On the way back I asked Mom if she thought she could help me come up with a ball gown. We talked and I doodled finally deciding that if I could find Mom's hot pink, formal with a full skirt, we could probably alter it to fit the plan. Mom also had some black lacy cloth with velvet red roses embroidered on it hanging around, that we both thought would work well.
In the car I doodled the following:

If we sewed boning into the skirt, I thought, we could help my pathetic excuse for a hoop skirt a little. Then use the majority of the black lacy cloth to form several loops or panels that we could attach at the waist with hook and eyes. If we split the short sleeves I could line the outsides with black lace and we could use what remained of the cloth to make bell sleeves underneath. We could fill the open (and deep) neckline with black cloth and form a high collar to make it more appropriate to the period. After the fact I decided to do away with the buttons and line the bodice, double-breasted style, with black lace. I also discovered, after the fact, that the dress had rosettes on it that I snipped and replaced to cover the hook and eyes. 

Worn (badly) several years later here is the final result. Unfortunately I have no frontal view. One of the downsides to reenacting is that you never carry a camera around yourself, unless it's on a tri-pod and you are a professional 1800s photographer. Most events I don't even take my cell phone into camp, so it's rare that I get a photo of myself, or anyone else. This particular picture was taken by a good friend of mine as part of the cast photos for the first play I directed. The play was called "Gettysburg Canon", hence my wearing the gown.

After I got home from Mom's my uniform et al had arrived. I tried it all on and was delighted! I worked on the little bits and pieces of my gown while I counted the days to the weekend in East Harbor. On Wednesdays in our little town, regular as clockwork, there is a huge auction just up the street. The week before I wandered up that way and asked if I wouldn't be able to set up a table and sell my raffle tickets to the influx of people. Most of them are appreciators of history so I figured I would get a good audience.

A week later I marched the quarter mile up to the auction house in my uniform and sold all forty tickets in the span of an hour. It helped that I was set up right by the front door. The auction people did more for me than even they realized.

By the time Friday rolled around I had sold the tickets I had been given, created a ball gown with the help of my Mom, I had a uniform and everything I needed, my swimsuit in the back of the car just in case the chance to swim arrived, and was about to make the longest trip I had yet made in my Pontiac Bonneville to Lake Erie. Big body of water and reenacting together, in the same weekend! Heart attack of happiness anyone?

I drove up, getting more and more excited as the stretches of water shed areas grew around me. I drove into the park, followed the signs to the area where the camps were located and easily found where the 9th FL was. A man named Arnold, and Bert (the president), were there and I made myself Arnold's assistant almost immediately. I helped set up tents, move equipment. I rode around with him while he arranged meals for Saturday night and Sunday morning. Arnold had a crate of peaches near his tent that were hard, and bitter. After trying one I decided that I would avoid the peaches for the event, but Arnold thanked me for my help by buying me a fast food sandwich. I ate it, set up my own crap in a borrowed tent and then was told that most of the rest of the group wasn't likely to arrive til late evening so I should take advantage of the heat and the nearby lake.

I drove off in the Bonneville, got into my swim suit and swam for a few hours. For me...hours in the water is nothing. I love to swim. While there I met up with a small family, two granddaughters and a grandmother. I'm fond of kids and the granddaughters and I had fun playing in the water together. Their grandmother liked me and didn't mind my helping her keep an eye on the girls. At one point Bert and Arnold apparently came looking for me. They hadn't expected me to be gone as long as I was and they were concerned that I might have drowned or washed out to...well Canada, I guess.

I breifly saw two men on the beach, at one point, talking to the grandmother, and later found out that it was Bert and Arnold. After the day drew to a close the grandmother, who was grateful as I said, and friendly, and intrigued that a 19 year old girl would be on her own at a reenactment playing as a soldier, invited me to go with her and her granddaughters out to eat.

After I dropped my Bonneville at camp and told Bert where I was going, (asking permission if I could go, and being told that I didn't need to ask for permission), we went off to a local pizza joint.

Now for those of you who think that I might be a creep, or think I might have been taking a chance, or wonder why I would make instant friends with total strangers like that, lemme explain. I love people. I spend a great deal of time alone because that is where I am most comfortable, so when I'm tried of being alone I go all out to meet people. This period may last as long as an hour or a day, but however long it lasts I make friends easily and quickly. Some of them are for the day, some for a life time. I'm good at reading people and knowing the type that will put up with me and the type that simply won't understand me. And I can take them or leave them as I will.

These folks were fun, and worth getting to know, and hey! I got free pizza out of the deal.

The grandmother was good enough to drive me back to camp and I invited her and her granddaughters to come back the next day for the festivities. I don't know if they did or not because I never saw them again.

That evening most of the folks were pulling in and setting up camp. There was a buzz about what was going to happen in the next few days.

I heard talk about gaurd duty and pay roll and battles and a ball and another chance to swim. We sat around the camp fire that evening setting up night guard. We were told what to expect and I and the other new, young ones, quickly volunteered for guard duty. We were shown the procedure for changing guard and I was told that I would I was supposed to take the second to last shift that night. For the most part we were staying awake so that someone could be alert in case a modern camper or otherwise interloper stumbled into camp and tried to steal something just laying out.

By the time I was on guard duty (arranged by the First Sergeant) I didn't have to worry about interlopers, I had to worry about the relationship. While I was very seriously marching back and forth in front of the camp flags and the commanders tent he was bugging me with questions. While I was shifting my gun to my other shoulder so that the gun was always opposite the flags he was asking me if I liked to dance. And if I had a dress. I fired back more snide comments than I ever had in my life, but he was persistent. I was finally released from my duty by the Captain after only a half-an-hour, the Captain declaring that an all night guard was superfluous. I turned in, or tried to.

That next morning I discoverd yet another a curious thing about reenactments. Every event has it's own 'thing'. A characteristic, a flaw, or a delightful benefit that is particular to the area, the people, the size or the scope of the weekend. And it's only something you can notice after doing an event more than once. East Harbor had mayflies. Giant, inch and half long, mayflies. They invaded the tents, covered the lawn, rose in sheets when you marched through open fields, would roost like pigeons if you stood still long enough. Lake Erie was flavored with them.

We had two battles Saturday, both of which took place out in a large field. On one end was a small rounded hill, a large weeping willow and a stagnate pond. The rest of the field was surrounded by trees with a few paths cutting through the forest. The first battle we came around from behind the hill, the second battle we came from the woods. We marched and fired and died and ressurrected and had a jolly good time. Up until the majority of the unit died and the only person left standing was the oldest member, who hadn't heard the Captain's order that all of us should die on the next round of canon fire, so was left standing with the flag in his hands while all the dead people giggled on the ground.



One of the fellas that hangs out with us is Shamus, pictured here with his buddies on the little hill loading the canon.

That afternoon we had a pay call that almost ended before it began when the Yankees stole our pay box. Never mind what they were intending to do with Confederate script that couldn't be exchanged for Yankee money, they stole it and we cootered up and ran after them to get it back. Of course the Captain, who is forever getting into trouble, was more curious about the execution that followed than he was pay call. Of course all of his pay immediately went to the lady playing "Katie" of cat house fame, so he had nothing coming his way anyway. Except for, of course, the pay slips he confiscated, which were duly returned to the rightful owners.

Anyway, the Yankee scoundrels had been lined up opposite a wagon with a tall pile of hay bales to get what was coming to them, and the Captain was peering over top of the hay bales, and lost his hat to friendly fire as a result.

The 'hat flying off' trick was one of many that our dramatically inclined Captain pulled for the sake of the viewing public. He is the Stan Laurel of the 1860s.

Most of the officers, and a majority of the privates, lost some if not all of their pay checks to either Katie, their wives who were ever present, or to the army itself for losing parts of their issued uniforms or arms. I was the only private that got his full 13 dollars and I have gaurded those photo copied bills zealously ever since. It was the first and last time that I recieved my full pay.

That afternoon I discovered, also, that the peaches that had been green the night before were perfectly ripe that afternoon and I ate far too many of them, such that by the time everyone else trouped off to swim I was sick to my stomach in my tent. That evening I was back on my feet and heading to the Bonneville to get out and put on my pink gown. I drew a great deal of attention from the gentlemen, about which I was blushing.

The ball turned out to be a bit of a flop. We had no band, only a handful of CDs and a boom box. No one really to call the dance, just the relationship and a few others that knew how to do dances of the period, and the Captain was there to call the dance. But towards the end of it I taught a few of them how to swing and waltz and do a few more modern steps. Challenging in a full hoop skirt but ultimately tons of fun.

That evening, while enjoying the fire side, we heard the curious call of a wild animal. I and a few of the other younger members shared looks and noted that the call seemed to be coming from the general area of the First Sergeant's tent. One of our privates decided that it was the call of the wild turkey and as they were known to be violent creatures when disturbed, it was best we left it alone.

That next morning we were giggling about the wild turkeys much to the embarrassment of the First Sergeant's wife. She was so perturbed that when she found out who the ring leader was she declared that she wanted revenge.

So it was that after our battle Sunday we marched said private to the stagnate lake where we were fully prepared to execute him. Of course Mrs. First Sergeant wanted the first shot, despite knowing nothing about firing guns and her first attempt involving supporting the gun by the barrel and not the stock or the grip. The offending private was duly shot, twice, then hung himself (he was talented at hanging by one hand from a tree limb in a manner that made him look as though he had been hung, it was convincing!) by the tree. He refused, however, to allow himself to be plunged into the stagnate lake. Pansy.

When I left East Harbor I knew it would be to go, almost immediately, off to camp for a few months but I promised the unit that I would see them again at Findlay. I packed up the Bonneville and trooped home smelling wonderfully of wood smoke and sun, with the greasy feel of black powder on my hands and feeling the peculiar, bone tiredness that comes from every event. Nothing better in the world.