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Kent enjoyed every aspect of the event. He talked with the other reenactors about the details of what they were demonstrating. He loved the historical stories they told. He is originally from Massachusetts and when the schools were visiting on Friday a student would often ask about his accent. Kent used this as an opportunity to tell the students about how the revolution differed from Kentucky in Boston and other parts of Massachusetts and New England.
Last year, Kent did participate in the battle with a borrowed dummy musket. This year, however, he watched from the bleachers. He was amazed at how well done it was. All the participants were enthusiastic and gave it their all, he said.
In short, Kent summed up his experience of the two night, 2 ½ day historical camping and reenactment as a live changing experience.
The second SAR member was John. John is a comparatively new member to the Sons of the American Revolution, and has already gotten involved in a big way, attending grave marking of Patriots buried in Kentucky, a naturalization ceremony, the annual ceremony in Blue Licks State Park commemorating the Revolutionary War battle that took place there. But this was his first battle reenactment.
He says it was a bit intimidating at first, as he didn't know exactly what was going on or just what to expect, but it didn't take long before he got into it. When the reenactors walk out into the open field, cautiously and nervously looking all around, he got a real sense of what the settlers must have gone through back in the day. Are there hostile Natives about? If so, where are they? How many? Can they see us? And then when the Native Americans started whooping and hollering, the chaos, the shooting, he really felt a little like the settlers must have felt in the confusion. He took two shots with his rifle, then heard a shot and went down.
He said he really learned a lot out of reenacting the history that the average person doesn't know about.
“It's really awesome that Kentucky has a lot of history and how far back it goes,” he said. “They had to do everything from scratch. If we run out of detergent, we run to the store. They had to make it. It's easy to learn the history if you are actually out there doing it. It gives you the itch to get in there and do more.”
John plans on attending the upcoming reenactment of the Siege of Fort Boonesborough. See you “back then,” John.
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