Gratitude journal
Today we went to a Civil War re-enactment fair with our new friends Tom and Beth and their daughter (whose name I have not seen spelled so I'm not going to try and fail). (Stick with me, this is going to arrive at gratitude.) The staged battle was a bit more realistic and darker-edged than I'm used to from Ren faires. It was kind of an odd experience. On this side of the rope border, a bunch of moderns gibbering about things they think they know, and cheering for a side, and trying to control their shrieking kids, and eating hot dogs. On the other side, it's all banging and smoke and firecracker smell, and boys playing drums and flutes while other boys shoot and shoot and shoot from their tidy rows, and sometimes it goes on and on and nothing seems to be happening, and then suddenly there's one more round of shots and boys suddenly fall over, "dead" or grievously wounded and left to lie there while the cigar-chewing journalist paces back and forth in the distance with no apparent concern, and meanwhile it seems like no one ever comes around to them with even a swig of whiskey, let alone any medicinal help, until the priest swings by with his big wooden cross to send off the dead ones in spirit while the wounded still lie there.
So I'm grateful I wasn't in the Civil War.
So I'm grateful I wasn't in the Civil War.