Brian Sheridan said:I think we all romanticize time periods we did not live through. Younger people today pine for the 1970's - they don't have to live through Vietnam or Watergate or (gads) disco and polyester.
People dress up and re-enact the Medievel Period or the Civil War, neither time being a ball of fun.
I think we here try to recall the best of the period and apply it to today - it is not an attempt to wipe away the hardships or trouble of back then.
"The good old days weren't always good and tomorrow is never as bad as it seems" - William Joel
I reenact the Civil War, and you're right - it's no ball of fun. In March I did a five-day event set up in the Louisiana forest. Two other women and I were portraying a household whose house had been burned by the Federals; we were living in the woods. When the Federals retreated back through the area, we were unhappily in their line of march and we endured some rather tense moments. They went through all of our belongings, taking all our food and matches and "smashing" my precious spyglass; they also found letters from the commander of a Confederate unit. Nothing actually happened to us; we weren't even forced to take the Oath of Allegiance; but many, many things could've happened, and in the period, did. I'm not in reenacting just for the clothes. I'm recreating for others and learning for myself exactly what it really was like.