To kill a reenactment

 To kill a mockingbird

I do not relish dwelling upon the down sides as there is so much of the up side worth celebrating. I have been attending the annual Battle of Olustee re-enactment in Baker County since the inception and long before the Blue-Grey Army got in on the Olustee BATTLE festival began by Vernon Douglas and the Lake City Runners Club, piggy backing generously off the events in Olustee 16 miles to the east. 

This year, with the too easy covid precautions to blame, the Blue-Grey Army put on a festival with as little connection to the Re-enactment as possible, cancelling the parade that was once full of marching confederates and union, ladies in hoop skirts and such, cancelling the skirmish around the lake, no Monitor or Merrimack, not participating in the Oak Lawn Cemetery Memorial, no Running Rebel Fun Run, moving the event away from Marion Street and Olustee Park to the crowded, I guess Covid doesn’t care if it’s a food or craft venue off Lake DeSoto. Except for the historical museum which still offered period demonstrations, the festival was little more than a food, craft and music gathering with no tie to the reason it got its name or history. 

To most, fine. What more is there than food and music?

And now to my frustration with the battle. Once you could park along 90 and walk to the event. Those who arrived early, as I often did, could park by the entrance and carry your wagon with chairs and blankets and stake out a good viewing spot. It was deemed a few years ago by FHP too dangerous to park along US90 after many years, so you now must park in Olustee and at the prison a mile east and catch a bus to the park, wearing a mask of course, due to that pesky Covid again. No room for carrying chairs and such. And following the battle, which you’d be advised to leave in the third quarter as on the commercial of being just like your parents, if you stuck around for the volley, you’d still be standing in line to catch the bus. Things that cause people to say, not again, and thus little by little it dwindles down.

But maybe that is fine. I remember when we’d gather by the monument and the ranger would walk the gathered group out to the field to watch the re-enactment.

Olustee in Lake City is dead and I’d recommend the Blue-Grey Army die as well and sink your efforts into the Pioneer Festival Chris Esing put on with such success earlier in the year.