Amen, SRS. There are better ways to die than hiking in Texas in the summer.




Somewhat OT (no women) but my favorite reenacting story comes from my brother:

My brother and his friend Craig got invited to a WWII reenactment that was to be held in the non-campground part of a state park (park officials had declared this part off-limits to regular campers for the weekend in an effort to reach out to local reenacting groups). Germans versus Americans; Craig and my brother were on the German side.

The whole group decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to stage a night battle, which they didn't normally get to do because there wasn't usually enough space and there were too many modern campers around. So, they picked and area and agreed on a time, basic strategy, etc.

At the given hour, the "Germans" took their places in the brush and started creeping toward the agreed "Allied" lines. Soon, they began to see movement in the area where the Americans had agreed to meet them so they waited for just the right moment and then jumped out of the bushes, yelling and firing blanks.

The "Allies" dropped everything and fled, screaming, into the woods.

Staging a battle doesn't work if your opponents don't shoot back so the "Germans" all got out their flashlights and started looking around to see what the Hell had just happened. My brother was shuffling around looking for clues when he kicked something. He told me this later:

"As soon as I picked it up, I knew exactly what it was. It was a Boy Scount canteen. The Americans had been late getting to the 'battleground' and, instead, we had just 'shot up' a troop of Boy Scouts."

They found out the next morning that a troop of Scouts had been out orienteering at night, had gotten lost, and had wandered into the off-limits half of the park, where they were subsequently attacked by Hitler's army.

I'm sure some of those kids are still in counseling.