I hail originally from New Jersey, but I was only 1 year old when I came down to Florida, where I have remained. I guess I ‘have sand in my shoes’, as people say, though I do not have a massive Southern Accent, which I have deliberately avoided developing.
I love to watch the educational channels, like Discover, History and so on BUT, the CONSTANT hashing and rehashing of the Civil War is getting to be real damn annoying. Do they do this ABOVE the Mason Dixon line? Every friggin’ week there is SOMETHING on about the Civil War. If it is not historical discussions of various battles, it is exposing the dirty underwear of assorted heroes of both sides. Then it goes into the development and discussion of guns and ships, followed by the actual life and hardships of various soldiers. The politics are discussed time and time again, along with the stupidities, the errors and the assorted blunders. They discuss everything except how many times the average soldier took a shit!
PLUS, here in the South, there are whole groups of people who like to reenact battles of the war, in full uniforms! Some of these things go so far as to have the participants hand make their clothing and gear from similar materials and then they actually LIVE like the soldiers did – i.e., they don’t wash, sleep in huddles and stink!
I’m tired of it! I think I’ve learned about as much about the Civil war as my teachers knew in high school, if not more! Now, of course, they’re digging into the Black participation in the war and how they were discriminated against even by the North and promptly executed by the South and generally had a miserable time of it, including hardships AFTER the war. Before long they’ll be showing hour long docudramas about the whores of the North and south who followed the regiments into battle and screwed the eyeballs out of the soldiers for a good cause, and some money.
Is it just me? Am I being testy? I loved CONNECTIONS, but they took that great show off of the air and now insist on rehashing the Civil War again, and again, and again! By now, after years of this crap, I can make and cook a hoe-cake, know what hard tack is and can make it, can sew up a woolen uniform, forge a black power rifle (they showed how to do it in detail), load and fire one, perform battle field surgery (back then it was just hack and slash with no worries about being clean or sterile) and make bullets.
The next person who shows up on an antique show with a genuine, one in a million Civil War sword, a hard to get original and unwashed uniform jacket, a battered and rusty Civil War pistol or a handful of lead ‘balls’ from the guns is probably going to make me barf!
I’m probably stomping all over ‘SACRED GROUND’ by saying this down here in the deep South, but, hell, put something else on. A friend of mine is investigation medieval times, where they hold various meetings dressed up in hand forged armor and stuff to have fun – with no battle recreations. He’s building his own armor – which ought to make him look interesting considering that he is about 5 foot 8 inches tall and built like a tank. Naturally, his weapon of choice just has to be a war hammer.
BUT during these festivals THEY GO HOME AND SHOWER! The blend in all types of warriors and people from a whole mass of years, unlike the Civil war nuts. Nor do they rehash, over and over again, LOST BATTLES! They do drink a lot of home made mead and ale, and I LIKE that. Everyone gets kinda friendly after a while at these things.
PLEASE! No more damn Civil War movies on television.