Remember Robert, pack light at NHC. Slow targets are easy to shoot at !

I'm new to the hobby (spent a year or so reading what other people were doing and picking up gear), and New Hope Church will be my first real event. So I'm both looking forward to it and hoping I can measure up and fit in. To see if I'd be welcome, I contacted the the captain of the company that the members of Mess No. 1 are signing on with before I registered. He said, "make sure you fire your rifle, and we'll be happy to have a fresh fish." So....I'm on my way...

One of the most perplexing questions I've had in reenacting was a seemingly simple one:  How do you put on a d@mned knapsack?

I bought one, and layed it out on my bed.  I stared at it.  And stared.  And stared.  For the life of me, I could not figure out how the dumb thing was strapped on.  Connectors, hooks and straps pointed in all directions.  I was totally stumped.

I finally decided to call in an expert:  The fifteen year old son of a friend of mine who reenacted.  He sent me detailed instructions on what went where, and how to get it on.  I was not one bit embarrassed to have asked, but rather relieved.  I've since found out a lot of folks needed help figuring the miserable thing out.

I'm too stiff-jointed to loop that right side shoulder strap hook into the triangle connector.  I usually need a comrade to do it for me.  It beats twenty minutes of cussing...

LOL  Thats for reminding me of my first time with a knapsack.  I'm sure the real ACW soldier had the same problem.

"It beats twenty minutes of cussing..."

Nuh Hua

Quote :

GrumpyDave wrote : "It beats twenty minutes of cussing..."

Grumpy,

Nothing beats twenty minutes of cussing!  

Bernie,

You started out all wrong with that pack. First, you should have hit the thing with a BFH (Big F**king Hammer)to get it's attention. After that, all would have gone smooth! During twenty years in the Green Machine, I found very few inanimate objects that didn't work better after the forceful application of a BFH.    

--Last edited by Bill on 2008-03-20 16:51:15 --

If applied properly, twenty minutes of cussing can bring great change to a situation.  Granted, there are various levels of cussing.  Not just any foul mouthed oaf is capable of pulling it off.  Anyone can be vile and nasty, but it takes proper instruction to progress into the higher rarified cussing realms.  One is greatly assisted by a military background because this is where you encounter post graduate level cussing.  It is nonstop, 25 hours a day, 8 days week.  That stuff is the alpha and omega of profanity.  We are talking about nothing less than suma cum laude cussing.  Civilians know nothing of cussing.  Civilian cussing is the equivalent of spit balls meekly tossed at a battleship.  It’s entry level cussing, maybe even lower.  The military has cultivated it as an art form and then set about improving upon its applications.  Its practitioners are genius in its usage.  It requires an apprenticeship consisting of being the recipient of those perpetual glad tidings for multiple years.  The Army is quite simply world class in its usage.  Those who have mastered the complexity of the appropriate delivery are fully capable of launching forth a single obscenity which can be employed as all eight parts of speech….simultaneously.  Eliminate cussing and you will eliminate the Army. Cussing.  Army.  The two words are synonymous.  After having processed through an epicure level of profanity one begins to form a cankered appreciation of the spoken word.  Those who really know their cussing, with nothing but the words and wind coming out of their throat can change weather, blister paint, render knee caps soft, make armpits hard, and actually cause bowels to flow in the opposite direction. Oh, Doctor, properly applied, that knapsack doesn’t stand a chance.

Quote :

flattop32355 wrote : One of the most perplexing questions I've had in reenacting was a seemingly simple one:  How do you put on a d@mned knapsack? I bought one, and layed it out on my bed.  I stared at it.  And stared.  And stared.  For the life of me, I could not figure out how the dumb thing was strapped on.  Connectors, hooks and straps pointed in all directions.  I was totally stumped. I finally decided to call in an expert:  The fifteen year old son of a friend of mine who reenacted.  He sent me detailed instructions on what went where, and how to get it on.  I was not one bit embarrassed to have asked, but rather relieved.  I've since found out a lot of folks needed help figuring the miserable thing out. I'm too stiff-jointed to loop that right side shoulder strap hook into the triangle connector.  I usually need a comrade to do it for me.  It beats twenty minutes of cussing...

Bernie

As I read your post, I thought about the scene in Si Klegg (pg47-48):
Then the knapsacks were distributed. Si had never seen one before. He had only heard there was such a thing that a soldier carried his surplus clothing in. He had an idea it was built something like a trunk, such as other people used when they traveled. He opened it out and examined with curious eye its great "pocket" on one side and its flaps and straps on the other. He stuffed his blanket into the pocket, buckled in his overcoat, and then tried to put it on to see how it would feel. The first time he stuck his arms through what he conceived to be
theplaces intended for them, the knapsack landed squarely in front of him. This, he was sure, could not be right, and he tried it again. He got mixed up in a chaos of straps and buckles and the riotous knapsack dangled under one of his arms. Extricating himself, helaid it upon the ground and prepared for another trial. " I'll git the durned thing on 'f it takes t'll Christmas!" he exclaimed.
After another examination of the perverse contrivance, he thought he had found the correct theory of putting it on. Swinging it up to his shoulders, and leaning far forward that it might the more easily lie kept in its position until he could make the necessary connection, he thrust one arm through the closed strap, holding it up from the rear with his other hand, almost unjointing his shoulder. Then he tried to fasten the hook and had nearly succeeded when the knapsack gave a great lurch, as the cargo of a ship shifts in a storm, and rolled to leeward. It carried him off his balance, and knapsack and Si went down upon the ground all in a heap.
Si was not in the habit of losing his temper, but as he again got upon his feet there were svmptoms of fermentation. He began to utter language as expressive as his Sunday school instruction would permit, when one of his comrades approached, laughing heartily at the result of his tussle with the knapsack. "Lemme help ye git the hang of it, pard!" he said.  

--Last edited by lhsnj on 2008-03-20 20:38:28 --

Quote :

Ken Cornett wrote : Remember Robert, pack light at NHC. Slow targets are easy to shoot at !

Don't worry, I'm thinking of trying the hobo roll for the first time. I just hope my asthma, fat, and borderline knee don't decide the event for me.

Gentlemen,I agree, cussing can be a art form.
I was not in the military.( Many thanks to all those who served)
My father tought me to cuss. He was a Marine Sgt. in the Pacific in WW II.(39 months over seas). After the war he settled in southern California as a Policeman and later in the Highway Patrol.
He would cuss in at least three different languages. Good old english, Spanish and some Japanese cuss words he picked up on those Pacific Islands. When he got mad, I got a ear full.
Then I worked thirty years at a steel mill with a lot of veterans, so I got a lot of practice in the art form.
I was forced to tone it down when I got married, the wife did not approve.
Now it my late fifties I don't practice the art much anymore.
Ah, those days of a misspent youth.
Comm. Sgt. Dan Girton, Company A, 6th Ohio

I remember being handed a borrowed knapsack at registration at Pickett's Mill '01, when I was portraying the assistant surgeon. After one or two attempts, I gave up, just went to the closest man I could find, and said "how the heck do you put this thing on?"

On the topic of swearing, I had to portray an obnoxious fellow last spring, who was scheduled to be murdered actually for being an all-around jerk. One of those "he just needed killing" types.

In real life, I've got two modes: swearing on, and swearing off. Portraying him, I decided to do it "swearing on" even in front of women, but I'd never tried to do heavy period swearing only. It was strange to be able to swear, yet still have to watch my language, to use the right mix of words and the right parts of speech (no all-purpose f word, a lot more blasphemy).

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net