A Librarian Moment

I had intended that this blog be reserved for pure CW reenacting tales but at the moment I haven't really got any. In the mean time I've run into an surprisingly potent irritation at work. You see...some of the ladies that work in the processing/finance/inner bowels part of the library decided to have a few impromptu words with me the other morning and I've been put off by it since. Here's what my imaginary therapeutic session has done for me.

Bear in mind that I work at the main branch of a small county library.

The stage is set. I'm head librarian for a day and my crew is most of the girls that work in the basement.  Most of the time they can be found sitting at their fun little desks, taking one or two ice cream breaks, five or ten smoke breaks, one or three lunch breaks. But...these beeches is mine today.



I walk into the arena and inform them that at least one of them is page for the day so she should immediately go out and start properly shelving and organizing four to five carts of books. At first she looks smug thinking, 'Alphabetizing...ha! I can do this in my sleep. And I know the Dewey decimal system better than my husband’s backside!’



I grin ever so slightly then flatly continue. “And after you finish those five carts you have all those to do…” I point back behind the circulation desk to the shelves that are loaded with books. Not only is every shelf filled end to end, but in some places the books have been shoved to the back of the shelf and a second row has been added. “…tonight.” I finish.



The poor dear has more than enough to do but I tell her she has other duties. Like giving children’s floor a break at seven, locking up the basement at eight and being ready to clean up the various areas on the main floor at eight thirty.



She marches off sullen and resigned to a lonely, mind numbing task and I point to the others around me. “As soon as she brings back a cart someone should be back there checking in and loading up another cart. In the interim there needs to be at least two people behind the circulation desk at all times. You need to put away the Audio/Visual items whenever you can and you will all be asked to put away at least one cart tonight because slave-ah…I mean Librarian…T-trainee #1 will need all the help she can get.”



Never mind that you may or may not be familiar with the computer system, or the main floor itself.

Just wait for the first homeless person to come in. And you must respond to their needs. If they decide to lean over the counter and breathe into your face while they tell you interesting facts about the new wonder-nut they just heard about on their portable radio, you are not allowed to make faces, or comments.



When the woman with three screaming children insists on keeping her kids on the main floor while she uses a library laptop to check her Facebook status, you are not allowed to shout at her that she should take her kids up stairs, or corral the little brats into the bathroom and lock them there. You must treat her like the freedom loving American that she is and do your best to placate the other annoyed patrons.



Suppose someone comes in, having had the world’s worst day and they ask for an item that they claim is being reserved for them and it’s not there. And they throw a fit. Then you have to inform them that not only is their item not their but they are not there. As in…in the system.



“Well I have things I’m going to be checking out. And I’ve been waiting for the 54th season of Snoggles United for fifteen  !@#$% weeks!”



You try to say, “Sir, I’m fairly certain that Snoggles United  doesn’t actually exist and that’s why your Inter-Library Loan request was not only ignored but I also see someone wrote ‘LoL – You’ve got to be fu-‘”



But Mr. I’ve-Had-A-Bad-Day-and-Can’t-Think-Past-It isn’t going to stand by. Not only has the library failed him in his time of dire need, but now they are mocking his intelligence. So he fumes and snarls and says horrible things then stomps out leaving you bewildered and on the point of tears. But right behind him are fifteen other patrons, twelve of whom insist on conversing at the top of their lungs and standing in the way of the people that are clearly in a major hurry.



And you have to be polite, patient and calm….with all of them…right now.



Then there’s a lull. And in that lull you have to hurriedly check, scan in and lock, organize and put away every item that has collected in the drops or on the counter top before the next rush comes through. If you miss an item, or don’t scan it in, or don’t lock it, or put it on the wrong shelf in the back it will come back to haunt you.



The lull ends…far too soon. Another group comes in, you’re shaking because you haven’t eaten anything since you left home and it’s been three hours of flow and ebb and no time for food. You’re still emotionally spent from the reaming you didn’t deserve by Mr. Nasty-pants and just as you go to help the first in a line of aged patrons you can barely hear, the computer terminal freezes. And it’s the kind of freeze that can only be fixed by shutting the whole thing down and turning the whole thing back on.



And since these computers were brand new about when mobile phones started to become popular it’s going to take a few minutes. Now there’s only one computer at the front of the desk, one in the middle at a separate kiosk with no locking magnet and OH BY THE WAY…the computer in the back is on the fritz…again…so now everyone back there making carts, sorting stuff, etc. has to use the computers at the front to do it.



Another lull. Then she comes in. Tall, gangly, walking with a rolling limp, her hair in tufts sticking out every side and she’s never known a quiet day in her life. It’s not her fault really, she’s probably autistic. She always wants to get on a ‘compooter’. She always wants help. Your skin crawls and you try to look busy every time you hear her shout, “Scuuuse me…Kin you haalp me.”

She always comes in to search the net for a stay at home job that doesn’t require her to send in money first. You don’t know how many times you’ve told this woman that it’s not going to happen but she doesn’t care. It’s what she wants, and she comes to the library because she doesn’t have a car and can’t walk all the way across town to get to the business set up precisely for the sake of helping people like her.


So she sits down, finds some websites, starts loud conversations on her phone flourishing with profanity.

And of course, ten to one, you'll be the librarian that has to go over and help because every other co-worker has had the same exact reaction as you.

But the patron saint of librarians will bless you ten fold if can help her with loving kindness in your heart.

Meanwhile you’ve got another impatient customer who doesn’t appreciate the joke you tried to tell because you’re losing your sanity and right now a slightly bent sense of humor is the only thing keeping you together, but she’s in a dang hurry so she can get home and enjoy the final season of Dexter that she tried to borrow from the library but couldn’t watch because it’s scratched.



“And why is it you can’t just clean it now. The machine is right there. What’s the reason? Oh…no poli-cool? Really…why don’t you order some?”



“Not my department,” say you. And it’s not, but that doesn’t make sense to Mrs. Everyone-around-me-is-inept-just-like-my-husband-says.



Then….then!!!! Someone comes in and says, “I need a library card.”



What you would love to be allowed to say is, “I need to see a background check, credit check and if you wouldn’t mind stepping through this metal detector here….Or would you rather submit to a pat down?”



But what you actually say, with some manner of hopeful trust in mankind, is, “Sure thing, I’ll need to see a driver’s license with current address please.”



“Oh well I don’t have it with me, but, can I show you my Kroger card instead?” She asks.



“No, Miss. I really need to see a state ID.”



“Well..it’s out in my car and I just wanted to get a library card…” She says, showing you with her soulful eyes just how painful it will be to trot out to her car.



How many ways can person politely say the same thing before it becomes rude?

So instead, you cleverly lean in and wince right along with her. Feeling her pain. “I know it’s a little inconvenient but it really is necessary for us to have your information on file.”



She sees the wince, gets the idea that your conspiratorial inward cant means that you’re letting her get away with something and happily trots out to get her ID.



When she comes back she mentions that it’s not her current address on the ID, and no she doesn’t have any mail on her. No bills indicating her current address.



“You can check out today but we’ll mail you your card, and you will have to bring it in next time.”



For all she cares you could be telling her you need to hold her first born as collateral…so long as she can check out that movie she’s hoping you have. Or those shiny new video games there on the wall kiosk.

 (Oh yes. The video games...that do next to nothing when it comes to educating the populace, but some brainiac figured they would be uber popular and are definitely reason enough to spend several thousand dollars purchasing...not to mention the time it takes to enter them into the system, and the money you spent on the special carousels that hold the discs. Carousels that are placed at the very back of the room adding another fifteen-to-twenty seconds to the amount of time it takes to check a single patron out. )

She fills out the paper work and you get into the computer system and look her up and you are, gosh….not at all shocked to see her name there in the system.



Brightly you say, “Well looks like you used to have a card with us.” And you know full well there is likely to be a massive fine attached with it. But boy doesn’t she look hopeful, and completely innocent. And you can see the ‘liar liar’ gears starting to churn in her brain, prepared to deny deny deny.



You open up her status and lo and behold there’s several dozen books missing, and all the replacement fees have been sitting on her dormant account since she moved away. She’s got several hundred dollars that she’s got to pay.



First she’s shocked, then she’s outraged, and even after you print off a copy of her account (which costs money, which she isn’t going to pay for) she can’t believe that she is still expected to pay those fees. And surely that book can’t possibly cost fifty bucks.  And I never checked these items out.



And her grandmother died, her dog was accidently burned at the puppy sa-lon, and she lost three nails just the other day and can’t you just cut her some god-forsaken slack!?



Bravely, firmly, you say, “No.” Because you are aware, if no one else in the town is, that the library does not in fact have its own money tree growing out back.



She pulls out her credit card and hands it to you while looking away…hardly believing that she must stoop so low as to be charged for using the FREE public library.



“We don’t accept credit cards, I’m sorry, Miss.”



More shock, more indignation.



So you do the lean again…and you tell her the deal. “If you just bring those items back, or replace them (which you can do pretty cheap on Amazon), we’ll let the fines slide.”



Because really once the item is replaced, what does $1.90 in fines per book do for the library? Especially when it no longer needs to shell out several hundred to have the things replaced. (Which in this case they probably weren't going to replace anyway..)



Well she thinks you’ve just saved her life, or at least saved her dog’s life, and maybe she can replace a few nails with the money she’s saving.



Out she trots, happy as a pearly clam.



She’s happy, you’re happy, the library hasn’t fallen down, and one less person has yelled at you today for things that were out of your hands from the beginning.



Now is when I pull my librarian intern to the side with a friendly hand on her shoulder. And I say to her,

“Imagine you get to have lunch now…and you go down into the lunch room hoping that it’s empty so you can have a small part of your day be void of human noise. But…no no. All the people that work downstairs are there, leisurely reclined about the table enjoying lunch…hot lunches. That they’ve obviously had time to warm. So you sit, with your cold PB and J and glass of ice water, and you listen to the chatter and are fairly ignored up until one of them notices you…and starts talking about how you all keep waiving fines. And the more they talk the more they indicate that everything you do up stairs is in-ept and is essentially the reason the library is bleeding money.”



Then I pat her on the back as I pull away and head for the counter, back into the fray. Let her sort it all out on her own the way I did.


I would LOVE to hand a copy of this out to all the ladies I shared lunch with. Not looking for a win here...just a little understanding.

Sincerely,

The Librarian

Gettysburg

Gettysburg was the beginning and the end of a number of things. For example, I was looking forward to beginning school again in February, and ending my job at Wal Mart. I was also looking forward to beginning my life as an official adult, with my 21st birthday coming in January.

Our unit had been given a unique honor of being invited to spend a weekend camping near the Pennsylvania Monument in Gettysburg National Park. While there we would offer a living history camp site for the public to tour, photo opportunities and would practice marching and firing drills in the field on the other side of the road.

I believe we were one of four different groups there that weekend, scattered around the park.

Now this would be the first time that I had ever been to Gettysburg. I had watched the movie once, maybe, but I'd never been there. (I had also never actually seen a reenactment, outside of the movie Gettysburg.)

In fact the movie had been my only real exposure to the civil war while I was in grade school. In high school I had done an advanced history project on female soldiers in the civil war, but the education I gained in my first year of reenacting trumped all that. The war between the states is a topic too vast to learn in a single lesson, or a single chapter. All wars are that way. It's foolish for a grade school teacher to stand before a classroom of students, present a well worn chapter on the Civil War or the Vietnam conflict or what have you and then call it done. It isn't over...not for the men that fought, nor for their descendants, because it happened...it is still alive because there are memories of these men (and women) still alive in their descendants. If that idea could be infused into the history teachers of today there would be far less burn out I suspect.

Either way, through the eyes and stories of the reenactors around me, I was starting to grasp just what it meant to be a living historian and have a better understanding of the war I presumed to represent. On our way to Gettysburg, crammed into a five person vehicle and traveling most of the night and well into the wee hours of the morning, instead of watching the movie itself we watched Scooby Doo and other children's videos. Primarily because our driver had chosen to take his young son along with him to enjoy the experience of his first reenactment.

We headed down Cashtown Road, which wound sharply through the mountains and it seemed that every ten minutes we would pass a sign that promised, Gettysburg 15 miles. Yet we never drew any closer to Gettysburg. We passed various signs for small businesses, including some establishments that promised naked women from the waist up. We were giddy, and tired, yes, and determined which dead Generals and Colonels were the reason for the erection of the various signs. Colonel McDonald, General King, Etc.

"This sign has been erected to mark the spot where General King was shat and killed on Jew-lie the third, 1863."

It took a few minutes to realize that the past tense of 'shoot' was not 'shat'.

We pulled into the inn where several of the other boys in the unit had already secured a room and piled out of the truck. There were two beds, but plenty of floor space, and I chose to bunk down on the latter. And of course my relationship joined me. It had become common place then for us to sleep in proximity of one another. I thought I was in love and I enjoyed the feeling of a man near me, the fluttering in my stomach knowing someone thought I was a step above repulsive.

The next morning we piled into our cars and headed out to the battlefield. We toured a little first, and at my behest we went to the top of Little Round Top and found the spot where the 20th Maine stood. We crawled around Devil's Den and went a few other places that I knew nothing about because I hadn't seen them in the movie and hadn't learned much beyond it about the battle of Gettysburg. Towards late afternoon we parked near the Pennsylvania monument; a four square pillar of a building with a rotunda at the top; and started to unload. We set up our tents in a sort of Chevron pattern opening toward the tree line and pointing toward the road.

There was a brick and stone out house near the road that was to be our toilette and we had water from various sources. Inside the tent we would share a few blankets, straw and the company of at least one other soldier. Despite the chill of September it was bound to be a warm night.

Some would swear I got drunk that night. Some would swear that I was a lush and was begging to have my cup filled, and filled again. Others would swear that I wouldn't have made it to my blankets if it hadn't been for a helpful soldier guiding me to the restroom and back. Some even swore that I danced about the flag poles.

None of that was true. But it didn't stop the men from gleefully spinning stories. I had some to drink, yes, and I swear that someone continued to fill my glass every time I looked away such that I couldn't empty it and call it a night. At the time I had blue tinware, provided by my father. Neither of us knew any better and I was working very hard to black it up. At Jackson it had been squished, inadvertently, by the wheels of a truck driven by a member of our unit; and since then chips of enamel had been coming off and floating into anything I drank. From coffee to beverage.

By the time I did get up I didn't realize how much I had had, nor how much it affected me. There were some blank moments between rising, getting to the toilet and getting into bed but...I was very warm that night. The next morning I was feeling a little sick. A little sorry. I rose and stepped out of the tent and headed for the little stone building and saw the loveliest rainbow. Arching up over the stone building and into the russet and gray sky.

We marched all over creation at that event. We marched across the road three or four times a day to show off for the tour buses full of spectators. We marched down to Armistead's marker and the wall to take pictures, including a very good unit picture. We marched at night out to Devil's Den to climb around the boulders and enjoy the silence of the park. Some of my fellow soldiers felt the need to bring cameras with them and spent hours snapping pictures of 'orbs'. Some claimed that they had started down the road near camp and had seen a soldier walking towards them and swore that it was a confederate picket. One photo was taken at Devil's Den, and shows just in the corner what might be the silhouette of a man in uniform. What I've never said to the photo taker or the others present when the photo was taken is that I'm fairly certain that the 'ghost' is actually me. It's far more fun to let them think they've a real spook on film.

We even speculated that the trenches buried under ground cover and dead fall in the woods behind our camp were once dug by soldiers, preparing for the battle to reach them if the lines broke.

This past fall I went on an early morning walk through the battle field and ended up at the Pennsylvania monument just as morning broke. I climbed to the top, exited the rotunda and while I was enjoying the breeze I tried to find the spot that I had taken a photo from five years prior. I circled the rotunda twice before I realized that I wasn't going to find it because all of the trees had been cut down by the park service in the interest of returning the park to the way it appeared in 1863. The green yard where we had camped was now indistinguishable from the rest of the area.

After our demonstration days were over our unit packed up, headed for the hotels for a final night in town before we would start the pilgrimage back. Most had come out in a large van and already there were grumblings about who would be driving. Some of the older members were fast losing their welcome, and more than a few fits had been thrown in camp. I was glad to be traveling back with a smaller group.

My relationship and I, and the others that we had joined our first night in Gettysburg, were planning to group together and spend the night in the General Lee suite in the Cashtown Inn. Above the museum is a series of rooms connected together, with (I believe) only one bath. Each room is well decorated and there is a common room with couches and fire place and a large TV. I made use of the bath first thing, enjoying the Jacuzzi and pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt. When I exited most of the rest of the group were gone somewhere and it was just my relationship and I.

I sat down and he started to massage my feet which was strange, and yet I thought...it was a good sign right? He wants to touch me...I can't be as repulsive as I've always believed myself to be.

Then we were sitting together and I was leaning against him and he turned to me. And I could feel him watching me so I turned to him. And then he kissed me. And I felt my heart leap into my head, clang around my skull and then try to go back down my throat, and get stuck. I told him it wasn't right. And he said he was sorry. But he had to do that. He had to see what it was like. And I thought, how could it be any different than the most frightening thing I'd ever done?

That evening we were once more on the floor together and I was cold because we only had the one comforter and I wanted my blanket. But my blanket was in the car. And I also wanted out. I wanted away from what was fast becoming something very very wrong. For an hour, in the darkness, I thought about how wrong it was. And felt sick to my stomach, and wanted to rave and rant and hate. And I really wanted my blanket, the vestige of the innocence that had been torn from me with just a kiss.

Finally I snuck out, got the keys to the truck and grabbed my blanket, taking my time getting back into the hotel room. I lay curled in my blankets, not sleeping until morning. As soon as the sun was up I left and sat outside on the steps thinking and crying. Feeling like I'd spent the night with a hundred different men, but knowing it'd only been with one. And nothing had happened between us yet I still felt spoiled and dirty.

I sat and I recited a hateful, hurting speech over and over in my head so that by the time he finally came out to see where I was, my speech was so refined and rehearsed it barely made sense. I told him I didn't want to be his girlfriend on the side. That I wouldn't be the reason for breaking up a family and what was he thinking acting that way toward me? Where did he think it was going to go? I told him that he should think of me as his daughter, and what would it be like if his daughter were faced with the decision he was putting on me? I told him that he had made a decision before God to be faithful to his wife and he wasn't doing that whenever we went to reenactments. I told him that it was my fault. For not putting a stop to it before then. For not telling him that I wasn't going to be his 'special friend' any time his wife wasn't around.

When I had talked myself out he said some things to me that I didn't want to hear. Already I had heard rumors floating around the unit about what was going on between us and I had gotten the idea finally that some of the arguments in camp had to do with my relationship and I. He promised me that it wasn't the way I thought it was. That I wasn't the girlfriend on the sly. After so much listening I decided I had enough and I told him I was going for a walk.

More than once, in the past, I got into heap loads of trouble for taking off on walks without telling someone. Going deep into the woods where I knew I could get back if I had to, but nobody else did and they thought for sure I'd be lost for all time. This time I didn't care. I was nearly 21, and obviously capable of making already gargantuan adult mistakes.

I kept my blanket around my shoulders and stomped down the stairs and across the parking lot, down a slight decline across the railroad tracks then up into the woods. I followed deer trail after deer trail praying and crying and begging for forgiveness and trying to figure out how deeply I'd dug the hole I was in.

I wouldn't say that I found peace. I still liked him. For all the hatred I had for the situation I still liked...loved the man. And that in itself was wrong. And I knew until that love was gone, I would be in the wrong.

I did cry all the tears I had left and at just the right moment I saw someone coming across the parking lot and onto the tracks with two cups of coffee in his hands.

He told me that he wasn't going to treat me like his daughter. I wasn't a daughter to him. He said, he felt more like a brother. He said that I was right. That what he had done the night before was wrong. He said he would tell his wife about what we had done that past year; which wasn't more than courting really; but it was bad enough. He told me he wasn't worried about what the rumor mill had to say about us, and that I shouldn't care a lick either. He told me that he cared for me, a lot.

The drive home was strange, and good, and I felt so unstable and awkward. I was glad when I was home. Glad to get on to simply working, and not thinking, and knowing that I wouldn't have to communicate with him again until the company meeting in the spring.

I hoped I wouldn't miss him but I did.

I hoped he wouldn't call, but he did.

I hoped I wouldn't feel the need to tell anyone about him, lying left and right, but I did.

Most of the rest of those first years is a blur of events. Meetings with my relationship that had nothing to do with reenactments and everything to do with my loneliness. Phone calls while he was on business trips with semi-serious offers to have me fly to where he was and spend the weekends with him.

At first I said no kissing. Then I told him more about why I was so afraid. Then he said that he was meant to be the interim. That he would be there to help me not be afraid of intimacy until my future someone came along. Then I made him promise to let the next step be my decision.

And it made me sick, and I hated missing him. But I still loved him. And I waited and waited to not love him anymore. And I lied to my family and friends and total strangers until I had created several different lives, separate from my own that would allow for my memories of him. Some of those memories weren't memories at all but more lies.

I left my first unit after about four years. After I saw that it was starting to fall apart, and after a brief weekend as acting First Sergeant ended badly. The younger men in the unit supported the man, my age, that had been elected second Sergeant. I never asked to be promoted. I had been in anticipation of future command changes, and I wanted nothing of it. Another unit was waiting to welcome me. They were based out of a city hours closer to my own, their events were closer and there were no relationships built on rickety scaffolding of falsehoods waiting for me either.

I left my first unit, feeling guilty; watching from a far as more than just the unit started to fall apart. But my relationship continued to cling to me. I would see him at some of our joint events and I would be repulsed at first at his behavior. And realize how much I had put up with to be with him. Then he would start to sink into me and I would be back to my old ways. And hating myself for it.

When I made my pilgrimage this past fall I lit a small votive candle at the Pennsylvania monument and watched it burn for a moment or so.

I thought to myself, "This is the end of that old relationship, the one that began here. The one that has been wiped from the field by the park service, and been wiped from my life by my own choices."

I lit another candle at The Angle. The beginning, I thought. I hoped.

Recently I met my relationship unexpectedly. I had come to this very large event with my current unit and he had fallen in with the Yankees. I was leaving for camp and he recognized me and shouted my name.

When I first recognized who he was I was surprised, and pleased, then immediately filled with dread. Because I knew he didn't get it yet. He didn't yet understand that I needed him to leave me be. Up to that point I had been too much of a coward to tell him that outright. To tell him that even friendship wouldn't work between us because he was still in love with me. Because he still thought we were soul mates.  Because any laugh or smile or tiny fraction of approval from me was an encouragement to him. I couldn't be merely friends with him because he wanted more.

We talked and I stalled, wanting to return to camp, wanting to be done with the day. I was tired and just recovering from moderate dehydration. There were a myriad of discomforts at camp as well but I'd rather have them than my old relationship. He decided he wanted to visit old friends in Confederate camp and we managed to hitch a ride together. And I felt myself slipping into being nice because I was in the presence of others that didn't know any better.

We got back to camp and while he made nice with mutual friends I slipped to my tent, grabbed my spare shirt and prepared to duck under the canvas to change. He wouldn't let me go. I said I had to check for ticks and such and finally managed to evade him and do just that; with out his help. When I got back he had caught on to my sour mood and...I'm not quite sure what he thought he had in mind.

He tried to sandwich me with his arms, then tried to convince another of my comrades to join him. That fellow wisely stayed away. I was telling my relationship to stop. No, I said. Stop it, I said. Leave me alone, I said. And finally, when he just wouldn't catch on I punched him.

I was close to him, and I thought, this is the only way to get the idea across. So I punched him. And he looked at me shocked. And I walked away.

He followed me and tried to ask why I had done it.

"You wouldn't stop. I asked you stop," I said.

He dogged my steps and said, "You didn't have to punch me."

"Yes, I did." I said. "You deserved it."

He tried to pout. He tried to get me to tell him it was all a joke. To laugh and shrug it off and make nice. But I didn't. I wouldn't. And I left him standing there pouting.

I felt guilty about it. I felt remorse at losing what might have been a friendship after all. I felt that I made him lose face before his former friends, and felt that I had lost face too perhaps...but I had finally drawn a line. I had protected myself in a way that I hadn't been able to in the past and for once it felt good.

And I kept thinking back to Gettysburg, and lighting that candle, and about how it was finally over. I had finally killed off whatever kept me in chains...chains disguised as love. I had decided what was best for me and acted on it, and done so with a pure, and hopefully chaste heart.

Perhaps, to you reader, it sounds like a lot of sappy, holistic, self-righteous nonsense. You may think so if you choose. But as I sit and write I have no regrets.

A Step Away From Reenacting, Dads and The Yellow Peril

Some might have the impression of me by now that I was an irresponsible, naive and spoiled brat, born to fortune and given everything in life. Never having to work to pay for school, or a car, or what have you. And to some degrees, yes I would say you're right. I do count myself fortunate. But there has been a major drawback to every fortune.

For example, my first car was a Pontiac Bonneville '92 (pearl gray of course) with a Landeau cover. It was THE hand-me-down of hand-me-downs. It started with someone we didn't know, went through another guy, then to my brother. And this was my brother's second car. It was driven all over creation, had at least one hole in it and my brother and I had done most of the repair work to get it going again before it could be driven. Then I paid my brother what he deemed the thing to be worth, a whopping $500.

This is sadly, not my car. Imagine this guy with the driver's side grill chewed up, the driver's side panel missing, a little more room in the trunk and a canvas, Landau top and you've got my baby.

Tada! First car! Long story short, it leaked every liquid it had in it at one point or other, and had nearly every other part replaced before I gave up on it (and even that wasn't my decision, I loved that car!) One of the windows didn't roll down, the high beams didn't work, it constantly blasted heat summer or winter, whether the fan was on or not and it really didn't idle so well. But it was a sweet car! And for all its faults it kept me alive.

So yes, fortunate to buy from my brother (who knew cars well), less fortunate to be like every other first car owner and get less than the absolute best.

Another example, college. Here's the plus side.

I got to attend a private Christian university for free that was less than ten miles from home, and smack dab in the middle of the community I grew up in. I could walk most everywhere in town, which helped since I didn't get the Bonneville until the beginning of my sophomore year, and because my parents insisted that being a student was my 'job' and because my tuition was free, I didn't need a job throughout the school year. I worked in the summer time but my free time at the university was my own.

Here's the downside. The reason I was able to attend this university was because my father has been teaching there with his PhD for going on 30+ years. He is devoted entirely to his students and his passion for teaching, and for doing so in an environment that encourages the application of our faith in every day life. Dad loves college students.

Dad is not, however, so hot about smaller people. Dad's MO is to go to work early in the morning, work through the day, work through the night, and come home late in the evening hungry, tired and ready to be very far away from people. This was the way he was when I was little, and it's the way he is now. So that meant that Dad was usually just...not around. Especially when were little, Dad would usually not be there for dinner, homework, getting anyone to band or drama rehearsal or youth group or....
'Call your father,' didn't mean shout for Dad to come in from the wood shed it meant call the college switchboard on the rotary phone and ask for his extension. (One of the reasons he didn't get a mobile phone until I was 21 was because Dad was always either at the school or at home. There was no 'mobile' to worry about.)

We went on whole summer vacations to New York and Texas without Dad. Most of our in-state outings were without Dad. Dad had no authority at home and really...wasn't an entity at home at all. If we spent a summer day 'with Dad' it meant he was in his air conditioned office and would bake us Pot Pies over a bunson burner when we came in from turning the college campus into our kingdom.

It was Dad's avoidance of things at home, of intimacy and love with all of us, especially my mother, and a bunch of other things, that lead to my parent's divorce when I was sixteen.

If Dad was bad when Mom was around he was the worst when she was gone. Dad hadn't a clue (as in couldn't find one if it were a glowing neon, ten-foot needle in a haystack the size of a pin cushion! "hadn't a clue") how to be a parent, now the only parent, to the two teen girls still living at home.

I don't know that Dad was intentionally avoiding us. He really was devoted to his work, and he is something of the 'absent minded professor' type. But more times than not interactions with Dad meant we kids would be blamed for things he had done, or else hadn't been around to witness, and when we showed how little we cared about that, his only recourse was to grit his teeth and call us 'wicked' children. To this day I hate it when Dad grits his teeth.

He was also for some reason the tooth decay Nazi.

Dad was a great provider though. And he is a musician and his love for music and the Lord, and his passion to introduce and teach both to his children are what has kept he and I together, along with our shared love for history. As an adult I know my father of course cares, and loves me, and even that he is proud of me. But I could not have said that as a child. (To this day he will not say, I love you. He says, "Daddy loves you.")

So back to the pros and cons of free college. Yes I got tuition remission, no I do not have tens of thousands of dollars of debt over my head. But I paid for that tuition remission by growing up without a father, and by suffering with my siblings through my parent's divorce.

Like I said drawbacks.

When I quit school, then was expelled, I knew a job was in my future. Other than summer work at the college in the dish room and occasionally volunteering for things in high school or the church I'd never had a job, never really been in the 'real world'. I knew I needed that experience before I could decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life (i.e. actually finish a degree), and I was craving that. But the message I was getting following camp, then Milly's, then the dish washing gig; was that I'm a failure. I haven't the fortitude and where-with-all and what have you to actually finish...anything. (If we're going to keep the pity-train going, I had been writing since the age of 5 and other than a three page fairy tale, I hadn't finished a novel, sketch, or play yet either.)

The reenacting thing gave me hope though. I was good at something, even if it was mostly make believe. Once I got back from Fayette I went on the application trail and in short order I recieved a call from The Great Yellow Peril aka Wal Mart. I had gone in to apply at one of their handy kiosks and since I was obviously a loser with little ability, no resume and no real time limitations, Wal Mart wanted me as a graveyard shift stock boy. The official title was something like Night Merchandise Manager...?

In no time flat I had gone through my hours of computer training, picked up my vest and my card and joined the ranks of pimply teens, college drop-outs, hard-working middle aged women and oft scary later-aged men.

I searched for 'Wal Mart night shift' on Google Images and most of the pictures made me laugh. This one had some artistic integrity to it though.

First of all I had to get used to the night shift. Sleep during the day, work at night. Seems like it should be simple. All you need are those special blinds that block out all the sunlight and you've got it made right?

Ever heard of a thing called Vitamen D?

Very important that Vitamen D. Comes in sunrays and milk. It is especially important for people that regularly suffer from things like depression.

Here's where it gets sticky, and as my voice tends to be aloof let me high-light the seriousness for a moment. If you have ever watched news stories about murder, rape, abuse, etc. and been unable to continue watching because you were so deeply disturbed; or have ever been heard to say, "Why would anyone do that?" in response to these terrible things (and never gone on to try to actually figure out why...) don't read the next paragraph.

I suffered from depression as a preteen and on down the line. Who hasn't? When I was a toddler, according to my mother, I would bite my arm and not stop when I was being scolded. I've heard of similar cases. At twelve or thirteen I started cutting, without really knowing what it was. Self-mutilation for you technical types. Now some time later I'll go through that whole saga, which does have a happy ending. The important thing for now is that whilst I was working at Wally Mart I was struggling with this particular habit (this would be the mysterious destructive habit from before), and it didn't help at all to be handed my very own box cutter as part of my official 'work kit'. Just saying.

The average day began with a dark ride into town along the back roads. All countryside. Lots of deer crossing signs. By the time I got to Wal Mart I had to march back to the layaway door, clock in as close to ten o'clock as possible and wait for the meeting to begin.

The meeting was about ten to fifteen minutes of waiting for the night manager (which changed every night), talking with my buddies, drinking horrible coffee and sometimes eating stale donuts, then finally being told how terrible (or, rarely, good) the store was doing on sales and being sent out to break up the skids. 

Break means unload, and not shatter with sledge hammers, sadly. Skids are those fun wooden crate things that people like to stack wood on. You stick a dolly under it and wheel the thing around as if it didn't weigh a ton with all the boxes of merchandise on top. If the truck had come in there would be a lot to do. If it hadn't come in yet we would have to look busy, front shelves, help in Grocery and wait...and hope the truck wouldn't dally until the day was nearly over and we were ready to go home.

At first I loved this job. Mostly because it was a job that didn't involve smelling like food every night. Go out on the floor find a box, open it with your snappy sharp object, figure out what's inside and put as much of that in its special place on the shelf as will go. If more won't go, mark it as such, put it back on the skid. The faster you get, the more boxes you go through in the night and the sooner you can move on to another area.

In addition to the skids there were always break out carts. I will never understand the logic behind break out carts. Maybe it was just to give the poor, bored, check out people something to do through the night since we were the 24-hour variety of Wally-Hell, and most of the farmers stayed at home at night. But every night, magically, there would be boxes of things arriving at the front of the store that had be opened and sorted into carts, (bound annoyingly in seperate, sealed baggies) and each group from each section of the store had to empty all those things onto the shelf as well.

Why those things couldn't be included in our skids I do not know. No one ever told me.

I usually worked in Housewares. That's the kitchen utensils, dishes, microwaves, vacuums, Rubbermaid part of the store. I loved late night house wives! I could take them to the product and price they wanted within seconds of seeing them enter my section, without them having to say a word. And if it wasn't in my section I would let them ask me, then point them to the price and product they wanted in someone else's section.  I liked knowing where things were, sliding products onto the shelf in perfect little lines with everything neat and tidy and spaced just so. I liked clearing the boxes and slicing through the tape just right and breaking the boxes down and OOOH! THE BALER!

Anyone working in retail knows about the cardboard baler. We had a big one too! Cause we were WAL MART! A giant rectangular hole, into which goes tons of cardboard. It gets squished and squished and when the squishing starts pushing the cardboard back out again out comes the long metal twine. With one guy behind the machine threading it through to another guy in front of the machine you bind up all the squished cardboard and watch it rise....and tighten....and strain, and just when you're convinced that your tieing method is inadequate and somebody is about to lose a limb cause that twine is gonna snap...the whole thing settles. You POP out the bale onto a skid and wheel it to the back. And then put in more cardboard.

Maybe that's more than the baler deserves but it was one of the satisfactions of the job. Everything had a place and not one of those places was the pie-hole of a customer.

The major problem with this job was...anyone could do it. It took me a week to get used to it, another week to get good at it, and by the third week I was already bored. First of all, those of you who don't go to Wal Mart all the time at night might not notice that the music playing over the speakers is the same...every night. Every hour of every night, the same line up, the same ads. It was starting to kill the ears of a girl brought up on musicals and Mozart and the BeeGees and Sousa. I love variety. Variety could not be had at WallyWorld.FM. Christmas was starting to look like more and more of a blessing until I'd heard the hippopotomas song so many times I wanted to puke.

Tune it out you say? For some, yes, that's a possibility. But music is my language first and foremost. I couldn't tune it out. And along with the lack of sunlight, I was starting lose it.

Some of the brighter moments were my coworkers. Two in particular were my protectors. I don't know what it is about my relationship with my father, and how that relates to all the other older men that I pick up along the way; but I tend to wander to intelligent, humorous, and somewhat torn people.

 One of them was named Carl. Carl was fun. Carl worked in the freezer most nights, and on breaks he and I would do crosswords in between witty repartee. On the nights I was too tired to think I would annoy him by filling in incorrect words. You know, the clue is 7 Down - A five letter word for intelligent. And I would cram the word "octopus" into the spaces. In ink.

He also had a weird problem with the way I sometimes held my pen, and any time I had my journal out he would ask how things were, what I was writing about etc. On the nights that I could get done with housewares early I would sneak over to the frozen section and help Carl finish out the night. He was comforting to be around. And he was something of a replacement father figure. He, and some of my other friends at work, even surprised me one night with a brownie and singing candle for my birthday.

Of course the ladies in the grocery section noticed my affinity for him and assumed something romantic was happening. That was something else we laughed about.

Scheduled on the days that Carl usually wasn't there was Larry. If Carl was smooth vanilla, Larry was hot chile pepper. Where Carl's teasing was based on sharing intelligence, Larry's was based on competing with intelligence. And Larry was a Civil War buff. We had long enduring arguments based on the fact that he was the son of a Yankee and I was a Reb. Larry usually worked in the furniture department, and since his other job was driving the transport for MOTA he didn't come in until closer to lunch time. But we would fight at lunch, he too would pay more than enough attention to my journal (even tried to read it once), and on more than one occasion I was invited out to his middle of nowhere home for a bonfire.

Larry had this devil may care attitude that out did most of the people I had ever met before. He built a huge fire, usually with discs of tree trunks a foot-and-a-half tall and soaked in diesel fuel; and sat near it in a recliner with a glass of icy lemonade. Since he was Mormon he couldn't have any stimulants, not even coffee or tea. So lemonade it was.

One of the first times I went out to his place it was partially for the sake of the bonfire, partially to enjoy a few hours arguing over his Civil War documentaries, and partially to live fire my 1863-model Springfield for the first time.

Larry liked guns and collected and melted his own lead. He had molds for mini balls, and lead balls, rounds for his hand gun, shot gun and pellet guns, and plenty of wadding, bore butter and powder. He liked to use the smokeless kind, though, and after a day of that I'd had enough. I brought my own next time.

The first time I tried to load and ram the Springfield I got the rammer stuck. Too much wadding, not enough bullet, and no bore butter. We fixed that. The second time it wouldn't fire. Enough wadding, plenty of bullet, too much bore butter. The third time was the charm. It fired and I shattered a pot shard to the four winds. The second and third times I was shooting at some of Larry's fire wood and he did me the honor of splitting it and digging out the bullet. I keep with me two of the rounds I fired that day. One of them still sits in the groove it carved, perfectly perched on the crest of a wedge of wood.

While he watched me load, Larry discovered that there were quite a few things about the civil war that his documentaries could never tell him. Like how it felt to load and fire a musket for the first time. He learned to load them the right way too and then he pulled out his more modern weaponry. Turns out I'm a damn good shot. Makes me wonder why the Yankees never fall at the reenactments. I'm pointing straight at them.

At Wal Mart, between Larry and Carl, a young lady named Elizabeth and a very good friend named Michelle; I had plenty of support. I also had three somewhat spectacular incident reports that bore my name, and in rapid succession.

The first involved Larry and I conversing as we worked, and the both of us happening to be working on end caps in the same aisle and then one of us, Larry, standing up too soon and cracking open his head on the edge of an empty shelf. He didn't know he was bleeding until I pointed it out to him.

The second involved working with Elizabeth and a ladder, and spotting her on the ladder but stepping away as she came down it and neglecting to mention that the last step of the ladder was no longer even with the skid we'd been working on. Elizabeth took out a few boxes and landed rather badly on the skid, but after she woke up she was fine.

The third was my all time greatest Jerry Lewis moment! When you think of fine China you don't think of those clunky, squared, cocoa-colored mugs and plates that are supposed to be all the rage these days. You think of small, dainty saucers and cups and dessert plates that are wafer thin, and have gold gilding and could probably be broken in half in one hand if you got angry enough. And at Wal Mart we had such plates. Of course nothing with any precious metals in it but these were the thin, dainty, pearly white plate sets.

Thin and pretty yes, but once you had a bunch of them stacked they were heavy, darn it. And unfortunately the brain kids at Wal Mart saw fit to display them on a free-form arm jutting out from the back wall of the shelf, with nothing but thick rubber to keep them from sliding back and forth and a tiny little lip of an arpeture to keep them from spilling to the floor. Display With Care, right?

Well...I had them all set and pretty. I went to the skid, grabbed another box, started past the plates on their little jutting out arm and noticed that one of them looked like it was tilting just a little. I watched it a second, frozen with the new box in my arms, until I was certain that it was my imagination that was making it tilt. Then I broke out the box and went for another. Once again I passed by and darn it if that plate hadn't been joined by another, and both of them were really starting to tilt. Obviously my stacking job was insufficient. I set down my box, righted the two plates, and tilted them back just a little more so that surely...this way...they couldn't possibly fall. I bent to pick up my box, got a bad grip.

The box leaned, I leaned. I dropped the box, bumped the shelf, saw my plates start to slide, went to grab for them, bumped the sticking-out-arm next to them...those plates fell, knocking into the plates I was originally trying to catch (one plate actually landed in my arms for a second but I fumbled so badly that it flipped in the air a few times then crashed to the floor); and since I was already off balance, half a dozen more things were wiped out with me and we all went shattering to the linoleum in a great cacophony of sound.

My neighbor came over a few seconds after the final tinkles of shattered glass had ended, pale white with alarm expecting to find me in bloody pieces under a pile of dishware. The look on her face, compared with the pure human comedy of the blunder I had just preformed caused me to burst into laughter. To this day I do not know why, or how, I was never charged for each of those dishes; nor was it deducted from my pay check. Maybe they were simply glad I was unharmed, and not interested in suing.

By the time my 90 days had ended I had signed three incident reports, been late to work twice, gone without without sleep for at least 72 hours, been in the manager's office a few more times to be questioned about the actions of  my coworkers, gained a tattoo, and watched three of the people I worked with get fired. One of them was fired the day she turned in her two-week notice.

So as February rolled around, and my plea to re-enter school on a probationary student was acknowledged, I strolled into Wal Mart, happily handed in my vest and announced I was quitting. This time...it didn't feel like a mistake.

The Job Hunt and Fayette

For the rest of the summer I was half-heartedly looking for work. I was asked to house sit once or twice. On the cooler days I went out to one of the local berry farms to pick berries. I think the pay was something like four dollars a bushel.
That wasn't going to help me pay for car insurance or get me to any of the reenactments.
I was interviewed by the manager of a small restaurant that I will call Milly's Mild and Messy. My title is far less appetizing than the actual name. The manager of this restaurant was terrible. She would be the Messy part of that title. She was a mix between Miss Hannigan and Matron Mama Morton.
Despite the ad in the classifieds asking for a cook or a waitress, she seemed determined to make every new hire into managerial material instantly. Basically, in a training period that consisted of two days you were to learn how to do everything she did, followed by one day opening and running the restaurant on your own. 
The cook position involved staying in the kitchen, the waitress position was a misnomer.
As a waitress  "everything else" you were required to run the cash register, take and make carry-out orders and take walk-in orders. If those choosing to dine in wanted meals that required cooking, that part of the order went to the kitchen, the rest you did yourself, as well as run the bakery display, make sandwiches and panninis, make cappuccinos and any other hot drinks, carry the hot meals to the sit down customers, bus and clean the tables including the two bistro tables outside, clean everything outside of the kitchen by the end of the night (deep breath) and!!!! somewhere in that time you got a twenty minute lunch break.
Now I'm a smart kid. After the first few days I got the basic gist of the thing and my biggest frustration, really, was having to remember how the stupid deli sandwiches went together. And I never did appreciate the tables of teenagers that came in, each one ordering a different cappuccino.
The lunch break was probably the best part of the job, though. Milly, who isn't really named Milly, is the Mild part. She was the best oriental chef I have ever had the pleasure of being around. She made incredible food, including Kim Chi, and would send it home with you if there was extra lying around. You got to eat your fill of whatever the day's special was during your lunch break...if you got a lunch break and she was sweet, inside and out.
Her manager on the other hand...well, I had more than a few customers grumbling about her including one who made a point of pulling me to the side, ducking her head and saying, "You're boss is a bitch!"
I quietly excused my boss's behavior at that particular juncture.
I'm pretty good at getting along with and/or ignoring the people in my life that annoy me. I don't like friction unless I'm causing it. That may be a poor admission on my part but, I like people to get along; especially when all of us have a singular goal in mind. If we all want the same thing, why fight amongst ourselves?
My boss didn't see it that way. If she wasn't standing over your shoulder gawking as you put together a panninni (I hate being watched while I work it makes me nervous, especially the first time!), or bashing the guy who cleaned the kitchen and took out the trash, she was whining about how awful her life/husband/children were and how badly she needed a smoke. And really..truly that was the root of the problems. She was always jonsing  for cigarettes, and constantly having to train or rehire new trainees made it harder and harder to catch the time for a smoke break.

I did a Google Maps search and found photos of the spot where the restaurant used to be. It's been many things since "Milly's" shut down. I'm fairly certain it's still sitting empty at the moment.

I worked there about two weeks and in that time I had seen at least two new hires leave, one in tears, days after they had been hired because of the way the manager treated them during training.
Sure it was a small restaurant, trying to make it in a farming town that doesn't like novelties, caters to fast food and has a Wal-Mart as the pinnacle of its social venues, but that's no reason for new hires to leave your establishment in the middle of the afternoon in tears!
The manager was trying to make it work. Unfortunately Milly's great cooking and the manager's hard-ball ways weren't enough.
At an event in Tiffin, Ohio, after much deliberation and conversation with my fellow soldiers, I did the dirty deed and called in sick. The manager didn't seem too heart broken to see me go, and I wasn't too surprised when the restaurant disappeared a few months later.
Tiffin, on the other hand, was a fun event that I saw through to the end. The relationship was there and it had continued to blossom, somewhat awkwardly. Unlike Jackson, however, we had the whole company with us and my relationship and I, and a few others shared this magnificent structure.

If I had been shy of the guys before this event I quickly learned that when it's cold out and you have only one blanket, body heat is the next best thing. No such thing as being shy.

The straw enclosure became known as Fort Humpter and was our temporary abode at Tiffin. I believe this was also the event at which a fellow soldier died magnificently while managing to dislocate his shoulder.

My next job was a fantastic three week run at a relatively popular buffet chain in town. I was hired as part-time dish washer, part-time fry cook. This meant that after hours of fried breaded chicken, ochre and shrimp making, mashed potato blending and scalding hot dish sorting; I came home sore, tired and smelling awful most every night.

My boss was a cross between a reality tv-show host and a wanna-be drill instructor. I got the idea that he was in the reserves but never actually confirmed it, he just had that bearing about him.

The uniform for the job was blue pants, non-slip work shoes and a uniform shirt. By the end of the first two weeks the lot was so thread bare from repeated washings that the seams were starting to fray. But frying-oil smells so God-awful by the end of the day that you dare not let it set in your clothes over night.

One Sunday evening, THE most profitable night for this particular business, I ended up in the dish room. The first three hours I worked up a rhythm. Spray, stack, wash, dry, grab every dish on the tray in one move, ignore the burning in your raw hands, stack them up and move on. (They told me to wear plastic gloves but I was so paranoid about them melting that I didn't bother. Besides once they're wet on the inside they're kind of pointless, and when you are working with a dish sprayer, trust me, everything gets wet.)

For the rest of the five hours I would get an occasional glass of something cool and refreshing handed through the stacks of dirty dishes. Every once in a few eons a teenage co-worker would come back to tell me that the boss was going to send one of them to help me in a bit. But they never did help. Just came back to give me false hopes. I didn't complain. I didn't whine about the constant stream of work or the fact that the piles were so high that I literally could not see past them for most of the evening. I was constantly working with my hands at a job that I had near perfected. And there really wasn't time for anything else.

I cleaned and stacked until every dish was in its place, then helped the night manager clean the rest of the kitchen before finally leaving, around one in the morning.

I went home, I showered the smell of over processed food and dish soap away from my body and I slept like the dead. The next day I went in and my boss pulled me to the side.

He said I was a 'real trooper' for working eight hours non-stop in the dish room without complaint.

He slapped me on the back to prove just how much of a trooper I was.

Then he handed me three gold-colored coins.

Not a raise. Not a day off. Not a day out on the hot bar, away from the grease and having my pants and shirt wet for eight hours. Three...nearly useless...coins.

It's like going off to fight for king and country and coming home to a pat on the back and food stamps.

That's essentially what these things were. With one golden coin you got nothing. Once you had earned three you got to have...wait for it....

Free access to the nasty, greasy, overcooked, glazed, tastes-and-smells-like-grilled-shoe-leather-and-ketchup food that you have been cooking and wearing home for the past three weeks.
....yay.

I quit soon after.

First, what I had done in the dish room was what most of the employees should have been willing to do on a regular basis, and not necessarily worthy of the 'special prize'. Second, getting shiny things as a reward is great for two-year-olds and cocker-spaniels but young adults attempting to make a living and pay for actual bills need something a little closer to big-people rewards. Like discounts for all family members; or a gift certificate to replace the thread-bare pants I was forced to wear every night.
Third, I knew I could do better.

Oddly enough, as I flipped and flopped through my jobs each location was literally higher, geographically, than the next.

Before I started working at my next job however we had our second-to-last event of the year. Fayette is gorgeous and the event is usually the first weekend of October.

Sadly most of the photos I collected of my early reenacting career were deleted when my laptop died last year. This is part of the grounds where the battles take place. And for that matter, this is the unit I first joined.

This particular year the weather was incredible. Sunny and cool most of the time, with the leaves just starting to turn and the grass so green it hurts your eyes to look at it. Driving past the cast iron fence with canvas already erected on the other side I felt like screaming for joy. It had been another long stretch between events and I was ecstatic.

I arrived, dumped my stuff and changed into my uniform, and because it was warm and most of the place was grassy I opted against wearing shoes. I greeted a few of my cohorts that were already on site and went looking for something to do since I was, per usual, incredibly early. I ended up assisting with registration for a few hours, all the time casually checking the street just beyond the trees and the cast iron fence. Not being obvious about the fact that I was missing someone relatively important to me.

As the sun started to set, and most of the familiar faces were in with their vehicles, erecting tents and preparing for the night's relaxation the familiar vehicle of choice pulled up. Some of the other members of the unit were there with him so he favored me with an odd accent and asked where he could park (as if he didn't already know.) I pointed him in the proper direction and waited. I knew he would be back. Something about the way we clicked together told me he would come back on his own. When he did he was in his vehicle, leaned out to tell me to get in, and before he need say anything else I was belted into the seat beside him and we were heading out of the park.

I remember I was elated to see him. I also remember the odd feeling of seeing the car seat in the back.  We went to dinner and had a fun time, went back to camp and set up. I had bought some painter's canvas at Lowe's and some of the guys helped me fit it together with poles and rocks and some spare tent pegs and I actually had my own she-bang for the first time.

I still used the footlocker from Dad and it fit under the tent.  I was settled and thinking about sleep Friday night. With the cool breeze blowing, a blanket over me and my bare feet poking out of the end of the tent I was fairly comfortable...and yet something was missing. Someone was missing...I thought to myself, he won't be able to sleep.

Sure enough, moments later...at first I thought it must have been ants that were messing with my feet. Then it didn't stop and I jerked up from my blankets to find him grinning impishly at me from the mouth of the tent. First words out of his mouth?

"I couldn't sleep..."

That night we walked around in the darkness of the rather large park, visiting the Yankees briefly (who were I believe, climbing and falling off of hay stacks this particular night), and finding a quiet bench to ourselves.

Despite the previously mentioned drawbacks of this new 'romance' there were other things from my past that were making things difficult. One of which was a bone rattling fear of intimacy. A big part of it had to do with tragic events shortly following my 19th birthday. Some of it had to do with being part of a broken family, and some of it had to do with being 19, and having spent most of those 1.9 decades believing I was ugly, unwanted, and just a little scary to most of the men around me.

To this point I had been convinced that my new relationship was just a fluke. Something of a desperate or crazy man that would eventually fizzle, and of course everything I was feeling towards him was just a response to being so well liked. I liked being liked, that was all. Besides it was WRONG! Right!? And yet, that night at Fayette, when the perfect romantic interlude produced itself and instead of being swept off my feet I was trembling and frightened and avoiding his eyes, I knew something had to be said.

That evening I shared some of what had happened to me, and I explained how very scared I was, how horrified I was every time it seemed that those events from my past might duplicate themselves. I kept telling him that it was me, not him, and he kept saying he understood. That he wouldn't push. He DIDN'T say that it was just a friendship...because we both knew it wasn't.

We also both acknowledged that there were places we could not go. Because for how tabloid this whole thing sounds, it was different. It was like watching two people, who have forever eaten only processed foods, and canned vegetables, step onto a farm for the first time and take a bite out of a real, ripe, off-the-vine tomato; or a stalk of fresh asparagus from a patch, or a ripe peach from the tree. There was more to the coming together of us than a romance paperback, and both of us recognized it. We valued talking, verbally exploring, laughing, fighting like children, and fighting together as soldiers against a common enemy. When one of us was out of camp for very long the other of us noticed, and would be uneasy until we were together again.

Yes there was a physical aspect, but it was just as much about the very invention of the thing, than it was about simply being included.

It was my first stab at real 'love', but I had NO idea where it was going. I just knew where it couldn't go.

The rest of Fayette was fun. Two battles on Saturday and one on Sunday. Saturday it was relatively still through the day and during the battle the smoke from the cannon fire was so thick, and the trees so dense, that by the time the Yankee infantry took the field we couldn't see them until they were well within firing range.
Sunday afternoon we had a bit of an upset. I was still in my 'war-rage' stage of reenacting, determined to out-shoot, out-fight, and out-die the enemy at every turn. One particularly young group of Yankees opposite us were flanking often but never actually advancing.
The Captain of our unit saw this and after watching a few of these little maneuvers he took a small company up the left flank, and because the other company refused to fire, we essentially walked up to them and took them prisoner.
The Yankees didn't much like this. After all there were five of us and twelve of them. At least one of them was young, way to young to be on the field holding a weapon. We ordered them to put down their weapons several times but the youngest Yankee kept his gun up, this wicked psychotic smile on his face.
We were less than ten feet from the audience and the Captain had already gone over to the red-faced Yankee in charge to figure out what to do now. The young Yankee was presenting a safety hazard with his gun up, and the rest of us so close, so one of our senior members made a move, stepping in and grabbing for the gun of the young Yankee soldier.
I swear I saw the kid grin before he pulled the trigger. The blast went straight up into the trees, knocked down some leaves and twigs and the concussion knocked our man to the ground. The sound drew both the commanders back and just like that both groups retreated back to their respective lines.
We were not happy, and there was a picture in the paper of our group as we retreated. The photographer of the picture graciously labeled it "Confederates Bravely Facing the Enemy", but no..it was a forced retreat, and at the moment we were putting up a lot of resistance to the order.
We eventually were incorporated into the rest of the confederate line and all of us went out in a grand blaze of glory when they uncovered a Gatling that one of the exhibitioners had brought onto the field. But we were not happy.
I wanted to string the kid up by his toes then parade him in front of the commanders and parents (or whoever) that had thought it would be a good idea to let him on the field. We made sure our guy still had his eyebrows and grumbled our way back to the tents. While it turned out that this wasn't the last event of the season, it was the first time I experienced great disappointment at an event. That's why I say, never fear. If we plan to show up at an event, we will burn powder.
We left the event to go our seperate ways Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining and I had music going the whole way home, a two hour drive for me, fifteen to twenty minutes for most everyone else in my unit.
I had more job hunting to think about, if I expected to make it to Gettysburg.

The Rest of Camp and Jackson

Going back to camp was torture, just like I expected it to be. My mistake with my counselors had been to distance myself and as my emotions took a nose dive coming back from Findlay, my counselors started to notice. I didn't find out about it until well after the fact though. My counslors were not terribly good at presenting themselves in my hour of need; unless they thought they could get something out of it.
At one of the pre-camper meetings I made a comment about some behaviors from the staff that made putting the campers to bed at night more challenging. Later I heard back from the lead counselors that one of my girls had been deeply offended by the comment I had directed at them in a group meeting. Once I figured out what comment that was, and convinced the lead counselors that it hadn't been directed at the offended party (for that matter the offended party had never entered my mind when I made the comment), I moved on. I thought that would be the end of the conflicts but days later the counselors got together to sit down with me and tell me that they felt I wasn't being honest with them. I asked them what it was they thought I was lying about. They told me that when I was hurting I should have come to them with my problems.
The response in my head was, "You're far too immature, unintelligent and ill-prepared to even begin to fathom my problems. I wouldn't go to a dentist to diagnose a heart condition, just as I won't go to you to diagnose what most psychiatric counselors dare not touch!"
I didn't say that. I should have. But I was aware of the fact that not having my counselors behind me would create problems. Apparently my subsequent groveling wasn't enough.
One week out of the summer the camp is graced by the presence of teenagers in the place of the usual kindergarten to middle school kids. We had the thirteen to fourteen-year-old girls.
It all came to a head when I was supposed to be off duty one evening, and all the girls in one of the rooms had busted open glow stick necklaces and splattered the glowing stuff all over the walls. Screams and hollering followed and, already on the rough end of a long and tiring day, I stormed in to correct the situation only to have my youngest counselor tell the girls, "Never mind her. She's not in charge."
I stood for a few minutes, passionately dispelling the urge to slap my counselor then threw my hands in the air and said, "Fine. You want to be in charge. You're in charge. Have at it."
I stomped out of the cabin, marched down to the bottom of the wood stair case that led to the road and sat for a very long time caught between running off into the woods to fell every tree with my bare hands, and marching up to the temporary home of the captain of the camp to tell him that I was quitting at that very moment.
I was angry, tired and worn. I had just recently discovered that the university had sent me a notice of my discontinuation as a student on an academic basis. They had expected me to receive the letter in early June but it hadn't arrived until mid-August. Since I wasn't home to do it myself, my father was in the habit of opening all of my mail and forwarding me information on what I received. He knew for a fact that the letter had not arrived until mid-August, and I was informed of its contents the day he opened it. Inside, the letter stated that I would need to send my own letter asking for re-admittance before mid-July or I would not be able to apply until the following semester.
Despite my protestations and long, costly phone calls to the administration and student affairs offices on campus I was not given a reprieve.
I was officially a college drop out for at least a semester, I was stuck in a hell hole of a summer job that was getting worse by the minute and what I most wanted to do was scream, or cry, or beat someone to a pulp. In my mind there were no longer such things as consequences.
Thankfully the lead counselors walked by before I could act. They didn't see me but I could see, and hear, them and their discussion was immediately more pressing, important and distressing than my own thoughts. Seeing another group of people with huge problems that needed solving helped lift my mood immediately.
Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy watching others suffer. I am however very aware that it is easy to forget that you are holding a pity party when someone else's real problems are presented. My temptation is to forget my own woes in favor of doing something good, or selfless, or loving to make someone else's day far better. It's a 'change in perspective' thing that actually helped me with what was once a life-long struggle.
Before the end of Teen week I did get an audience with the head of the camp and after explaining where most of the problems in my life were coming from I left camp a week early and headed home.
I felt bad, and an awful lot like a loser who couldn't finish anything she started. But by going home early I had the opportunity to attend an event I didn't think I would get to.
In Jackson, Michigan there is a park that covers several acres of land including a large hill, at the top of which is a series of fountains.

An interesting post-card I found. Gives a good view of what the 'falls' look like inside the fence.

At night the chain link fence is opened to anyone that will pay and lovers and children alike can walk up and down the ornate paths, listen to psychedelic music and watch the lights make the fountains change colors. The park also hosts a large reenactment every year.
After a few days at home I was all set and ready to head up, thinking that I would be riding with my the Captain and several others, and that it would be a group event.
But when I arrived I discovered that I was wrong. That all the others had backed out and the only one driving up would be my relationship and I. We were still at that awkward, flirting stage; exacerbated by the fact that I do not know how to flirt and I was fully aware of my relationship's marital status. But it was an event. We were soldiers. No flirting. Right?
We headed up, enjoying each other's constant ribbing and teasing. He yelled at me for getting us lost, I yelled at him for having crappy directions. We found the place.
Our first duty, however, was to find a company to fall in with. We were both dressed in civilian clothes as we walked down the first row of tents. We got to an A-wall and asked who the unit was and if we could join them for the weekend.
The men gathered around an unlit pile of sticks looked over my cohort, seeming pleased with the prospect, then took one look at me and said, "We aren't sure about having fresh fish join our unit. Does she wear a uniform?"
I raised a brow but said nothing and my co-hort vouched for my soldierly valor. The jean-wearing soldier at the fire said, "We'll have to ask our captain. She's not here right now."
My friend and I quickly caught on to the problem that so troubled our Confederate brother and we moved on, both of us grumbling under our breaths about duplicitous reenactors and...what?! A female captain? And they have a problem with a female private joining the ranks?!
The next group was far more hospitable, especially after one of the fellows turned out to be someone we had allowed into our unit previously. The only proviso was that I had to put on a borrowed frock coat, as this was a Kentucky unit and all of them wore frock coats.
The coat was the only uniform thing about them. A few soldiers had full beards and fine locks of hair and gleaming buttons. Those were the officers. The rest...a more convincing group of scoundrels and scallywags I have yet to see. Rotting and missing teeth; flapping, holey or just plain missing brogans; patchy beards and side burns; jewelry made from animal hair or teeth; most of them with a chaw of tobacco tucked betwixt there gums and every one of them had either a pipe, an Arkansas toothpick or a harmonica.

Taken in 2009, three years after my first time in Jackson. Some of the boys from our battalion.

I had THE MOST FUN with this group! First of all, these boys were the men that birthed my alter-ego Wyatt. With my own unit I hadn't been required to come up with a man's name, and I suppose most of the guys figured I would go with the male equivalent of my given name. But I liked Wyatt, no not Wyatt E., and shortly after I donned my first frock coat; I gave myself my reenacting name. The rest of the men in the unit didn't know me as anything else so they called me that regularly. I LOVED IT! I had a new name and with it a whole new personality to explore.
Once, while marching off for some drill, some of the men around me decided to have a spitting contest. Most were chewing something and started pointing out targets to hit and expectorating at them, some more messily than others. The worst of the group was the poor private that was told to aim for a certain branch on a tall bush and miscalculated so badly that his 'charge' ended up decorating the First Sergeant's uniform.
Friday evening at the event those in the unit that were musically talented gathered around the fire with harmonica and guitar in hand, voices primed, and started singing various songs from the period. Some fast, some rowdy, some slow. To this background music my friend and I, and two others, played a long game of Euchre under the flickering light of a lantern. Toward the end of the evening a final request was made for the boys to sing Amazing Grace.
With only a guitar and a single voice on the choruses, and the company on the refrain, and the silence of the evening as an audience, I lay back on my blankets under the yawning branches of a tree, closed my eyes and thought; this I could do for the rest of my life. This is the one thing that I would never quit without finishing.
The song ended, the camp quiet as the men prepared for bed.
Then minutes later the serenity was broken by an irate mother who came storming into camp to inform the singers that their "Amazing Grace" had apparently woken and scared her child so much that he peed the bed.
It was hard not to laugh. I turned on my side, fully prepared to sleep, when I felt something poking my back. Then my shoulders, then at my cap. I turned over, saw my relationship apparently sleeping, and turned back. Once again, poke poke poke. Jab, jab, jab. I grabbed a nearby fallen stick and swung it over my shoulder, giving him a solid whack before trying once again to sleep.
The poking turned into a mini-battle, then we settled, talking, joking quietly, laughing. Before we fell asleep again his hand had found it's way to the crest of my hip. I thought long and hard about his hand being there. And about how much I liked it being there. And about how wrong it still was.

Most of the venues were in the permanent structures or temporary canvas buildings like these. Under the trees, they looked really good.

The next day we fought hard, and spent the rest of the day wandering around the large venue visiting some of the vendors that he knew, getting a free cup of soup at the Soldiers Relief Fund tent, and thanks to my magnificent frock coat, getting mistaken for a guy when I went in to use the women's restroom.
Saturday night we got some dinner and headed up the hill to the chain link fence, standing outside it to watch the 'mystical waters' and talk about how stupid we thought it was that people would pay money to go inside when you could see and even feel the spray from outside the fence. I talked a little about my past and before long we were laying down in the grass, staring at the stars.

The mystical waters.

Unfortunately, or in my confused brain, fortunately, the silence was broken by the voice of two very drunk sounding privates. We couldn't tell where they came from, or whose unit they were a part of. They stumbled about half way up the hill and sat down, drinking from flasks and talking loudly to one another. Then the more sober of the two stood up, presumably to go after more beverage and keep the party going. As he started down the hill his buddy tried to join him and took a header down the hill, spilling end over end until he landed badly in the grass at the base. For a long time he didn't move down there at the bottom of the hill and both my relationship and I were beginning to be seriously concerned about his health. Then along came one of the gators that provided emergency transportation around the park, to pick up the sorry soldier.
We found out later that he may or may not have broken his leg.
Rule #930 - If you are going to partake in mass amounts of beverage do not do so whilst sitting on a hill, cliff or staircase.
The rest of the event went well and by the time I had returned my beloved frock coat and we had loaded the vehicle and were heading home, our relationship had been significantly altered. I felt loved, and part of me hated that. I went home, did my best to forget about it, and started to concentrate on the problem of finding a job.