Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 25, 1994 TAG: 9407250079
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It didn't matter much to McGraw, though. The next day, his side won.
The Revolutionary War games Saturday and Sunday at Explore Park in Roanoke County were just another opportunity for the Tazewell contractor to play dress-up and pretend. Likewise for Lynn Rogers, a Roanoke County tax appraiser, and William Brown, safety director in a North Carolina psychiatric hospital, and Billy Jack, a history student at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
Rogers, who lives in Fincastle, has participated in battle re-enactments for 25 years. He usually plays a trooper, but last weekend he was an officer with the 16th and 17th Dragoons. Also in British uniform were Heather Rogers, Rogers' daughter; Elizabeth Cleveland, a Lord Botetourt student; and Lon Reid, a Bell Atlantic employee who lives in Bedford County.
Reid is a relative newcomer to costume battle games. Rogers recruited Reid after they met as members of the Botetourt Mounted Search and Rescue Team.
"After I started, I began reading history," Reid said.
Living history people know their history and practice authenticity at their campsites, in their clothing and even in cooking, said William Brown of Burke County in North Carolina.
Brown camped alongside a wide area of the Roanoke River last weekend; he wanted to be as far from the enemy camp as possible. The river moved past muddy and swift, and smoke from the breakfast fire rolled heavy into the humid day.
Brown, clad in white breeches and shirt, paced while waiting for the battle time.
Being in Roanoke County was a real treat, he said, because several of his 18th-century ancestors came from the area.
"They lived on the Roanoke River. This is kind of like coming home."
Brown had his two young sons with him. Both, he said, are veteran "ridgerunners," but only one is "really into history. The other one likes to shoot."
Camping with them were Billy Jack and Jack's 13-year-old brother, Brian, from Elizabethton, Tenn.; and Chad Dykes, 20, of Jonesboro, Tenn. All of them are members of Hardin's Rangers. They represent the men who fought at King's Mountain and regularly do living history demonstrations at Fort Wautauga in Tennessee, which they "garrison."
In preparation for battle, Billy Jack "rolled cartridges," pouring powder into paper cylinders. He's partial to the British history of the period. The British were accurate shooters and could load fast enough to fire three to four times a minute, he said.
Billy Jack hopes to teach college history.
Dykes, a high school graduate who's currently jobless, said he never wanted to go to college, but he loves history. His costume was the most flamboyant in the group - it included such Indian items as an Abenaki neck knife, a beaded necklace and a sterling silver arm bands he "got off an Indian at Fort Loudon."
He also wore earrings and a nose ring.
His outfit could have gotten him arrested in Colonial Williamsburg, he said.
The costumes and accessories needed for re-enactment participation come mostly from mail-order companies or are bought at the "stores" set up at the living history gatherings.
For example, Mistress Trowbridge's tent shop, staffed by Jim Burnley of Williamsburg, was stocked with bolts of linen, wool and cotton fabric used for clothes of the period.
Burnley said the Explore Park gathering was his 14th event this year, and he has at least 12 more to go.
Donlyn Meyers, who runs a mail-order company, Smoke & Fire, in Grand Rapids, Ohio, said she works an event every weekend. She had set up a small general store selling everything from clothing patterns to pottery and tomahawks. Her company also publishes a newspaper of living history events.
There also were "blanket traders," like Elizabeth Williams, who displayed bags of tobacco, Rice pattern bowls and a few other items on a blanket in front of the family tent.
She said tobacco is always a good seller for her, because a lot of living history participants have period pipes but rarely have tobacco.
Williams, a computer programmer, was with her husband, Gary M. Williams, an illustrator for Dragon magazine, and their daughter, Kyra, 2.
They have been "re-enacting" for seven years. They met at a science fiction convention and alternate between the two interests.
"Between May and November, we're promised for almost every weekend," she said.
Blanket sales help "take care of some expenses," she said.
by CNB