In costume and in collective imagination, re-enactors travel in time to Renaissance Fairs or Civil War re-enactments or the Victorian world of Charles Dickens, to name only a few. Of course, these environments are inevitably far more convenient and pleasant that the original version, but if you’re going to travel to someplace that you can’t actually go, you might as well make it nice.
Where do you go in your mind that is far nicer as you remember it than it was in the original version?
My summer sleep away camp. It was magical being by a lake and forest when you live in a Bronx walk up apartment.
Linn, I lived in Brooklyn for a year and then the next summer I worked in a boys’ summer camp in upstate New York. I understand what you mean, even as a camp counselor.
Linn, I lived in Brooklyn for a year and then in the following summer, I worked as a camp counselor in upstate New York. The campers and I felt the same way, I think!
Since I spent two years in the Peace Corps in Peru, (actually three months of that training in the US and in Puerto Rico), I probably have glorified the experience considerably. I remember that I told myself that, if selected (and I was), that I’d give it a go for six months and then I’d stay the entire time. I wouldn’t give up my time in the PC for anything; it shaped the rest of my life. However, I know that there is a lot that I can remember but prefer not to. The lack of water, the daily dust in the roads of the barriada, the dysentery I suffered, the lack of opportunity at times to be doing “meaningful” work. the times when the language got ahead of me in a conversation (although I succeeded in communicating fairly well)very little communication with the home front (family and friends) …all of those kinds of confrontations became part of the experience . Regardless, I STILL encourage others to join up; it’s an amazing opportunity to represent the USA at the people’s level.