Speaking as a reenactor, most of us to do it because it helps us FEEL
history.  We know how to make our dinner with a fire started by flint &
steel and cook it while camped on the Oklahoma plains in 30-40 mile an hour
winds or in north Idaho in 4 feet of snow.  We have crossed rivers in
breech clout and moccasins and hand hollowed our dugout canoes ( I prefer
to for get certain incidents where some unnamed fools repeatedly dumped
themselves in the river in bull boats constructed while
Under-The-Influence).  We have competed with our caplock and flintlock
rifles, muskets and pistols and thrown our tomahawks and knives.  We do it
because it is better than READING about it.

Back home in Idaho, we refer to ourselves as "Buckskinners" because most of
us recreated the Lewis & Clark to 1840 fur trade period.  Here in Arkansas,
most of us think of ourselves as reenactors.  Some of them recreate either
the Spanish, French, British or early American periods here. I am only a
moderate but we have some hard liners.  Many of the reenactors have a
"persona".  They know what their name and age is.  What the politics were
at the time, how folks spoke and thought.  How they would have made their
living, procured and cooked their food, went to the bathroom and reared
their children.  Some of musically inclined even play period music on
recreated period instruments.

Here are a couple of website for reenactor groups that I belong to;

Hog Heaven Muzzleloaders
http://users.potlatch.com/bluethistle/hhml/index02.htm

Early Arkansas Reenactors Association
http://www.arkie.net/%7Eeara/

Mr. Nearly Normal

Smoke.

Smoke (Michael A.) Pfeiffer, RPA
Ozark-St. Francis National Forests
605 West Main Street
Russellville, Arkansas 72801
(479) 968-2354  Ext. 233
e-mail:  [log in to unmask]

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.