Our Fathers Brought Forth, Upon This Continent, A New Nation

Do you know what it feels like to be a part of something? One of the reasons that I love being a part of LHS and going to Pipestone is that I feel like I'm a part of something. It's like a dream down there, what with all the tourists around and being surrounded by a rustling cloud of hoop skirts and such. While at an event, I feel like I belong, becuase the people are gaping at all of us :). We don't just put on a show for an audience; essentially we live it. Period conversations, period food, period almost everything! Victorian Society (which I'm also part of) feels more like just dressing up and gong out...LHS is a group that teaches. The period accuracy might be a pain in the butt sometimes, but it makes it real.  I mean, I've been going to these types of events ever since I can remember, and although I got tired of them and took a break for awhile, I really do enjoy it. I've known some of the other members for my entire life and in a way, LHS is almost almost like a second family....well maybe a third family.
 Fashion Program Picnic on the egde of the battlefield Watching the battle August 14 Battle August 14 Tea with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln August 15 Watching the battle August 15

Enjoy the pictures!
♥ Bridget

Four Score and Seven Years Ago

Tonight my family an I returned from a weekend long Civil War reenactment. This Civil War Days festival takes place every two years an we have been going since I was four...so essentially we've been going for twelve years even though we've only been there six times. This time was different slightly for me because I am now supposedly "out in society", therefore I can't be running around with my bonnet hanging down my back like I used to; that's not to say I didn't try though :). This means that I had to be chaperoned anywhere I wanted to go outside the LHS (Living History Society) tent, and if my dad wasn't around, then my younger brother had to take me...even if it was to walk the fifty feet to the shop where my dad was browsing. This dependence was kind of annoying, but it also gave me a chance to drag my brother around and make him pick up things that I dropped and couldn't bend to pick up because of my corset. It was really fun in Pipestone because someone that we kind of grew up with (doing this reenacting) was there and so we all kind of "hung out", in as much as we tried to have as much fun as we could while still being pretty period accurate. On Saturday it was pretty hot, but I had on a silk sheer dress, so what breeze there was floated through the sleeves and skirt which kept me relatively comfortable. Saturday night there was a dance on the lawn of Pipestone City Hall. It was pretty fun but I wish they'd done more dances rather than stopped after 5. Anyway, I did a reel with my dad which was rather difficult because my dress somehow ended up floor-length, so it was rather difficult stepping backward and sashaying. Then later this like 7 year-old kid asked me to dance. He was so cute that I had to say yes, even though I'm terrible shy especially near a dance floor. Unfortunately there weren't enough couples to make another square in the quadrille so we had to wait for the next dance. When the next dance started, Katurah switched out with me and dad switched with the little kid, so we weren't actually partners but we were in the same square...i got a tall, awkward soldier. I noticed that subconsciously I have matured since the last Pipestone. While consciously I shy away from the idea of dancing with a stranger, subconsciously though, I think that if some other guy had asked me to dance, I would most likely have said yes. Getting me to dance is like pulling teeth, but once I'm dancing, I have a ton of fun... I love to dance ;P. Well, it's almost three, so I'm going to have to finish this another time.
♥ B

After all, tomorrow is another day!

And so, this well known final line of a great literary work, begins my post.
Today, August 3, 2010, at 3:35 am, I finished what I believe to be an amazing if bigoted piece of literature; Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I have seen the movie numerous times, but lately I had an inclination to read the original work from 1936. Having participated in Civil War reenacting since I was quite young, this story has always held some allure for me, let alone fulfilled the needs of my Hopeless Romantic Syndrome. :) Anyone who has seen the movie adaptation of Gone With the Wind must agree with me that Scarlett O'Hara (Hamilton, Kennedy, Butler) is not a lady under any circumstances. In fact she is quite adequately labeled by other names which decency prevents me from typing here. ;) In the movie Scarlett is a spoiled brat who, due to the Civil War, is thrown with the rest of Georgia into the throes of poverty and is burdened with the almost certain death sentence of starvation and despair. Although only nineteen when she is loosed to survive by herself and presented with the care of her beloved plantation Tara and all it's occupants, Scarlett manages to pull through, although the hardness she developed during the hard years was never to truly leave her. She later becomes a wealthy snob and lords over all her old friends in their prideful poverty that the war left them in. The movie stayed pretty true to the book (which is, as all book lovers know, quite unusual), but the one thing that sets the book apart and I think makes it more appealing in some ways, is that in the book you see what goes on in Scarlett's head; you truly understand the hardships that make her the character that she is. You also begin to sympathize with the Confederates and realize that the Yankees were not all they were cracked up to be...but that's for another post. Anyway, while reading the book, I actually felt genuine sympathy for Scarlett at times because of the cruelties of life that she had to endure at such a young age. That sympathy of course turned once again to disgust and hate when Scarlett begins her marriage with Rhett Butler, since as all my close friends know, he is my favorite character....the poor sad fool who was the only man who ever really loved Scarlett and had his heart broken and trampled on because of his useless ardor. My fascination and preference, stems mostly from the fact that I am in great admiration of Clark Gable's performance as Captain Butler, but I do actually like the character, for all his bad traits, if only for his hopeless love....thus crying out to my Romantic soul. :) Although the lack of conscience in Scarlett sometimes makes you shake your head in disapproving amazement, I don't think that she is quite as unfeeling and bad as the movie portrays, because like I said, you don't see her internal/mental struggle. Besides, if we were nineteen and had more than ten people looking to you for food and comfort and the Yankees had stolen everything from you including your mother, and we had been brought up in a sheltered life without being taught the necessary survival skills to bear life on our own, what would any of us have done? We would have made the best of it and done anything we could to provide for our families, no matter how scanty the provisions. This is exactly what Scarlett did. So despite her selfishness and her cruelty, I have to admire her spirit and her strength...and her Irish refusal to be trampled on and destroyed.