Stepping Back in Time

We stepped through a looking glass and came out two hundred years ago. It was a wonderful journey.  And it all started because our motor home died.

Jo and I drove our RV motor home half-way across Florida to a rally in Wauchula. We arrived at the campground, went in to register, came out and when I cranked the engine, it died.

Fuel pump was dead. We eventually were towed to a repair shop (this process took five hours from start to finish) where the owner of the shop had to drop the full (80 gallons) fuel tank under the motor home. He did this after a few hours and retrieved the dead fuel pump which was built into the fuel tank. It took him another hour to locate a similar pump and Jo and I drove off to Tampa (185 miles round-trip) to retrieve the new (and expensive pump). By now, I was muttering about not having much fun.

But here's where lemons began to become possible lemonade. On our way back to Wauchula, we saw an encampment on an escarpment off to our right. There were hundreds of tents and tepees. And a sign indicated there was a pre-1840 re-enactment scheduled for the next day and Saturday.

We tracked down information about the event on the Internet when we got back to the repair shop. By now, the mechanic had jacked up the rear of our home and it was going to have to stay that way through the night. When we went to bed, we definitely had a tendency to want to slide off the bed. As we lay there, I felt a little bit like Lenin or Ho Chi Minh in their tombs, all propped up nicely so the visiting public could walk by and pay homage.

We made it through a nasty night of coldness. The temperature dropped to 23 degrees F. When we awoke there was a coating of frost on our car and on the hundreds of tires that we slept among in the yard.

Jo made coffee and cooked bacon and eggs (difficult to do when they want to slide forward in the pan). And then we headed off to the re-enactment in Alafia River.
We were among the first to arrive and we strolled among the more than 1,200 re-enactors as they were just getting up and setting their pots and pans on the open fires all through the campground.

They greeted us warmly. Each person was wearing the rough clothing of the period. Men were in their coonskin caps. One old timer looked splendid in his hat made from a timber wolf.

We made our way through the camp to the Indian section (dozens of tepees). A particularly colorful tepee caught my attention. I was admiring and photographing the structure when the owner and his wife stepped out and invited us in. He told me he was a Blackfoot, although he had some McGowan blood from Scotland in him. "The Blackfoot all were considered troublemakers among the other tribes," he said. "So that, along with being a McGowan made the other tribal people here question if they wanted to set their tepees near ours," he said with a laugh.

His name was "Smarter Than Horses" he said. But he said the white man had changed his name to just 'Smart'. He introduced his wife, a Shawnee woman, petite with light hair. She told us her Shawnee name is "Pegs of Wood" But it too had been abbreviated by the whites to "Pegs". They had come down from Ohio.

They shared with us how the tepee is built initially with four tent poles. Other tribes use three tent poles initially. But he was sure his four poles were superior. He explained how the vent at the top of the tepee can control the draught so they can have a fire going inside the tepee.

We strolled on and heard singing coming from a large tent. We ducked under the canvas flap and found ourselves inside a bonafide classroom. Youngsters sat at wooden desks with their rough-woven coats, while some of the young girls wore pretty pinafore dresses and long woolen stockings. A man and his wife were teaching them about the battle of Culloden (1745) in Scotland. These kids were being treated to a genuine "You Are There" moment in history. The man sang them a song he and his wife had written about the battle - the last battle in which the Scots fought for their freedom against the yoke of the English King.

He finished his lesson, sang a prayer, and certificates were handed out to each of the children, along with letters that could be given by the children to their various schools so they could be credited with attending a school program. I liked how the children were totally captured in the moment.

We walked around in the now-warming sun and enjoyed chatting with the enactors who seem completely into the moment. When I came upon a woman who was cooking a turkey over a spit on an open fire, her sister was photographing her with a digital camera. She begged me not to take a picture of her while she held the digital camera since that would not be authentic to the time period. I did note, however, that most of the people did carry a cellphone. No watches were visible, however.

We stopped into an eating place and I had a "Prairie Dog" while Jo had a piece of fried dough. My dog was a Polish sausage, dipped in dough and deep fat fried. The owner of the establishment said he had found the recipe for the dough in a young lady's journal from 1793. He adapted the recipe and Jo said her's was excellent. I had a rootbeer (all natural, of course). They are not allowed to sell modern drinks like Pepsi or Cokes.

A young musician took the stage to provide a demonstration of fiddling. He initially played a one-stringed Asian instrument and made it sound very much like an American fiddle. He did that, he said, to illustrate the point that, in music, we all are one. Then he picked up a borrowed fiddle from the 1800s and played it with gusto.

This adventure took our minds of the uncertainty of the sickly motor home. So it was a delight to drive back to it and find it restored to full health.

We then drove off to enjoy our rally... a little late. But better late than never.

If you are still with me, you might be interested in the photo album of the event. You'll even be able to click on a couple of movies I shot in the classroom and of the musician. If you click on the picture at the top left of the blog, that will actually take you to the photo albums. Enjoy.