What grabs you

BTW, pewter was on it's way out for shirt buttons by the 1820's. Pewter is hard to cast & use thin, like buttons. Plus marks cloth. Some other metal, like zinc, etc., may be what they're made of.

 

On vacation ,we stopped at the Gen. Bradock monument in penn.. the sign directed us down a piece of the old Bradock road to the spot where his army buried him then marched and rolled the wagons over his grave to hide it.
Just standing there thrilled me at the idea of the famous men that passed through that very spot.

 

I too am often grabbed by the "daily" things. The things people of the day would have taken for granted that today are almost lost to us. I had the pleasure while in the Army to lead several staff rides (part of Gettysburg 2nd day fight, Battle of Five Forks, and breakthrough at Pamplin Park, Petersburg) and something that grabbed me was when one of the young officers got grabbed by the place or a realization of what price men paid there. Those were probably the best, to see someone impacted by history once they were confronted with it.

 

THAT is freaky. Perhaps he was literally reliving past days.

 

I have lived my whole 52 years in the Hudson Valley, surrounded by ghosts and relics of the colonial days. I enjoy history and like seeing it come alive. For me, I best understand things when I can relate to them. Seeing recreations or actual artifacts, reading first-hand accounts, and occasionally "reliving" it in some small way. I like to learn by doing, either 1st hand or vicariously. That's what grabs me.

 

Today Dozens search for weeks when a guy goes missing in the woods. . .
When out in the snow, hunting alone, I often remember early in Journal of a Trapper, (the gist of it) a guy is missing from a large group, 2 or 3 guys stay behind as the larger group goes on, these men light a fire on a hill top and fire off a few rounds. . . . . That was his search and rescue, I think the next morning the guys that stayed behind pack up and rejoin the big group. . . . and THAT was THAT for the missing man. .

 

I have been "grabbed" by muzzleloading, especially made even more appealing through vicarious readings depicting the lives of our Mountain Men in the early 1830s-1840s. This last weekend I finished one gripping true-life story; now moving onward in that era.

It was a real downer. After nine years spent in the wilds of the Rocky Mtns, Osborne Russell wrote of arriving in the Willamette Valley, thinking it might be a “safer” life. He then shared about the construction job he took building a flour mill, and how the accidental explosion of rock particles hitting powder permanently destroyed his right eye. He named the thought of such security to be a “delusion.” A “downer” was certainly what he experienced. It was the same for me as I closed his journal pages.

In the nostalgic-written poem of adieu, “A Hunter’s Farewell,” there was a foreshadowing of the loss of vision, even as Russell might never again see the Rockies: “Ye rugged mounts ye vales ye streams and trees, To you a hunter bids his last farewell...which I perhaps again will see no more.” What an emotion-filled conclusion to a powerful, poignant journal of the life of a mountain man. It was hard to close the pages of this real-life story.

I’ve not had enough of this interesting life style. So I move from this real-life journal next to the fiction genre. This book has been described in reviews as a “colossus” of mountain man literary writings, The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. I plan to look for a famous phrase, once said by one character about a mountain man’s life, “A man gets a taste for it.” ‘Twill be a good hunt to find this sentiment as I wander through the pages of Big Sky.

I have much enjoyed being gripped by this interesting American history...a good "taste" of more to come.

wiksmo

PostScript: Appreciate your comments, Sean and Rifleman.

 

I always liked the "Headless Horseman" tale...

 

Wiksmo.

If you loved "The Big Sky", you will love other books based on the characters from "Big Sky". Look for "Fair Land, Fair Land" and "The Way West".

Once you read those, then look for the Mountain Man series written by Terry Johnston such as "Carry the Wind" I think there are nine books in that series.

 

Thanks, Grenadier. Always room on the book shelf for more titles. Looking forward to The Big Sky. And while waiting for my library to get it in, I'm reading an edited book of 17 other writers titled Tales of the Mountain Men. One of the excerpts is "Brownskins and Beaver" from Carry The Wind. So I'll get an intro to Terry Johnston's writings. The character focus on a "wannabe mountain man" sounds like a good story premise.

If it weren't for the MLF sub-forum of "The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade," I would have missed out on a library stacked with Americana. Wow, great reads coming on cold nights!