Stepping back in time

Saturday was a rain soaked day but the annual Buckskinner Rendezvous was scheduled to be going on at the Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt. Wondering how the old time role players would weather the storms, Linda and I took a trip to see. Along they way, we took a swing by the Norwood Inn to split one of their now famous hot sausage sandwiches. Not a staple, it's certainly good on a day when you want to be warmed from the inside out. By the time we finished lunch, the rain had stopped... at least for a while.

We arrived at the park and found the village of tents and a tipi. Too late to see the flintlocks, we wandered the community killing time until the skillet toss. Most of the tents were basically just housing but a few were offering various trinkets. We stopped in at the scrimshaw tent and heard a little about the history of the art and technique of the craft. While there, we heard the call to the skillet toss.

The first skillet tossers were pretty young little girls. The antler used to mark the longest toss moved steadily back as the age of the participants increased. Once the girls were done, the women picked up skillets. They chose to go for distance rather than aim for a twine loop tossed on the grass.

After the skillet toss, we continued our little exploration of the settlement and found a handful of boys putting up a canvas tent using wood that certainly appeared to have been found in the area. Led by a young man, they were making good progress. A handful of little girls chatted nearby. Further up the road, we found a candy vendor. We selected an assortment of old style hard candies to enjoy and moved along.

As we were again nearing the skillet toss area, someone shouted "Candy cannon!" Intrigued, we cut through between a couple of tents and came out behind a line of children being positioning by a few adults. "Fire in the hole!" Boom! I looked into the sky and saw a leather pouch open and a rain of candies falling in my general direction. Well positioned, the kids scrambled to pick up their treats while the cannoneer came looking for his leather and wadding material.

Linda and I followed the cannon master back to his tent and chatted a bit about his uncommon artillery. Using a circle of leather, a half dozen car buffing pads, and a five inch pipe welded to a back plate, he'd experimented to find the right amount of black powder and candies that could withstand the shock. He figured he'd go through twenty pounds of candy over the weekend. Of course, he was a very popular figure around the camp.

We didn't stick around for the cannonball toss. How could it top what we'd already seen?