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Beginnings June 22-24 We left Los Angeles International Airport near midnight on June 22, 2004 in a bargain red-eye flight to Cleveland and then Philadelphia. By the time we arrived at our hotel, we were a little numb and more than a bit chagrined to find that our 12 passenger van rental was on hold, because I had brought our Visa debit card, instead of a Visa Credit card. I spent the better part of the day calling every member of the “organization” in question, including the president’s office. While I never got to speak to the head of this Fortune 500 company personally, I must have stirred the pot, because after three hours of haranguing, they eventually let us rent the van we had arranged for two months before. (“Get this guy his van. He won’t stop calling until he gets it.” That’s my best guess.) Having achieved a bit of justice in the city of brotherly love, we spent the early evening walking around Independence Hall, which is cordoned off and subject to security checks. Just down the street, however, a building of greater significance sits almost unattended—Carpenter’s Hall. Although closed for the night, we walked around its perimeter, on the same grounds where Patrick Henry met the Adams cousins (Samuel and John) in the first Continental Congress. I’ve listened to reenactors who sensed a reverence about a place—a stretch of ground at Gettysburg, or a wall at Ft. Niagra. This place had the same effect on me. For a moment it was just our little family and Carpenter’s Hall. The courtyard of immaculate red brick and the perfect symmetry of the building, all sheltered by immense oak and sycamore, spoke to me, somehow, of their greatness of soul—their courage and honor, their willingness to defy even a monarch in service of a greater King. In some small way, I felt close to my heroes. The baggage claims and the rental clerks were behind me. Our pilgrimage had begun. That night we had dinner in Philadelphia’s City Tavern, a building that boasted the largest ballroom of its day, and the place where George Washington hosted his pre-inaugural ball. We were seated in that very ballroom, and we enjoyed a fine meal. (Try the Madeira Chicken!) As west coast reenactors of American colonial history, this was our first exposure to our counterparts on the east coast. (It’s something like the owner of a New England based western steak house visiting Texas for the first time.) As I would conclude many times on our trip, the real distance is not between east and west coasts. The real distance is between 2004 and 1774. East coast reenactors face all the same obstacles in getting the clothing, and the language, right. The City Tavern was a joy. If you visit Philadelphia for its history, it’s the perfect place to be. The next day, we went through the security check points and visited Independence Hall. A spry, grandfatherly tour guide showed us the assembly room where George Washington transferred the presidency to John Adams. Another building on the site housed a courtroom with hardwood benches for the jury and a box for the accused. A recurring theme among the colonial courtrooms we saw on our trip seemed to be that a “jury of one’s peers” was supposed to include people that actually knew the accused. I imagine justice must have been a bit more speedy as well—judging by the jury’s unforgiving bench seats. I waxed a little misty in Independence Hall itself; the place has that same sense of reverence. On the way out of the building, a winsome girl in her late teens approached my wife, Mary, and asked if we were home-schoolers. Her family and ours had that in common, and we exchanged impressions of Independence Hall with the “Martins of Montana.” A great family! The rest of the day we spent walking the streets of Philadelphia, at the Franklin museum, the Betsy Ross house, and lingering along Aelfreth Alley, the longest continually occupied residential street in America. Somewhere along the way, a group of reenactors announced themselves with fife, drum, and musket—giving the children and their families the chance to join up ranks with the Associator minute companies of 18th century Philadelphia. I was pleased to hear that the “shot heard round the world” still echoes in one of America’s oldest cities.
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