We were to arrive at the school at 12:00am to board the tour buses that would ferry us to Gettysburg. I arrived early, looking my best, cooler full of lunch and backpack full of reading material in tow, ready for the bus ride. I knew I probably wouldn't get any sleep, but figured it was no big deal and kept telling myself "It's only ONE day." This was my first mistake.
I correctly assumed that I wouldn't get sleep, but I had no idea it would be because the people in front of me tilted their seats back like it was a ten hour flight to London. And snored. For five hours. Luckily there was another empty set of seats, so I moved over and Olivia (my daughter) settled into OUR seats for a rest. I think I probably got a total of 20 minutes of sleep, but I battle insomnia frequently so I was still doing pretty good.
We arrived in Gettysburg a bit late, but still had time for our breakfast buffet. The food was good, and I helped myself to two plates of bacon, telling myself that I would need protein to fuel me for my day. Self-delusion, but whatever, bacon is awesome. At breakfast, I noticed a man in full Civil War regalia sitting at a table full of parents and kids. Remember this man, we'll come back to him later.
After breakfast we headed over to some field full of monuments, where Civil War Man was waiting for us. As we approached him, he began to sing. Loudly. It was roughly 7:00am, so nobody was in any mood for singing, but we listened anyway...until he shouted "EVERYBODY NOW!" A teacher half-heartedly joined in. The rest of us stared. It was no song I'd ever heard, something about the North. I shifted nervously, embarrassed for Civil War Man. Finally the madness stopped and Civil War Man went into his speech. On and on about "At 6:00am, just as the sun was rising, 600 Confederate troops stormed over that hill, blah, blah, blah..." It was too early for this. I was sleep-deprived and in my mind kept thinking "Did this REALLY happen to this guy?? Is he acting? What is going ON??" Delirium had already set in, despite my bacon extravaganza at breakfast.
©Kari Potochnik
Olivia, perched on a monument, a big no-no according to Civil War Man.
After Civil War Man gave his speech, we were allowed to take pictures with (but not ON) some of the monuments. We disobeyed. Karma was with us, though, as I climbed over a pile of rocks to take a shortcut. I stepped on a loose rock (wearing flip-flops), the rock pile gave way, I slipped on the wet grass and I nearly went ass over tin cans trying to catch myself. Olivia's guidance counselor had to stop himself laughing. I wanted to say "Just laugh. Get it out. I'd be laughing at you if you had done it." I refrained and instead asked him to take a photo of us in front of a monument. I suspect he had a good laugh in private, though. Imagine a drunk tightrope walker loosing his footing and plummeting to his death (while carrying a Nine West cross-body purse full of hand sanitizer and bandaids); that's what I looked like, I'm sure of it.
©Kari Potochnik
Just after tripping over the rock pile. If you're very quiet, you can hear the guidance counselor chuckling...
Next was the cemetery tour. We wandered around the cemetery while a tour guide gave us bits of information. I spent the entire tour trying to find trees to stand under as it was nearing 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I was envying the dead; they were in the cool ground while I was feeling my penciled eyebrows slide off of my face. Thankfully after the cemetery we boarded our tour bus and headed for the tour of the battlefields. I reapplied my makeup for the seventh time, realizing that any attempt to look pretty was clearly futile at this point.
©Kari Potochnik
I'm behind the camera, wishing for death to take me.
Onto the battlefield! Our tour guide stood at the front of the bus, pointing at hills, monuments, rocks, flag poles and the like. I began to doze off. "Surely it's close to lunch time," I thought. I looked at my watch. It was 9:18am. I welcomed death. I couldn't stop dozing off, and not wanting to offend the tour guide, I discreetly put earplugs in my ears (I smartly brought them along) and not-so-discreetly put on sunglasses to hide my fluttering eyelids. We disembarked the bus several times for photo ops and such. I dragged myself around like a tranquilized gorilla. At one point, the tour guide instructed us to get into two lines as he was going to demonstrate a battle pinwheel of some sort. I feigned heat stroke and backed away into the shade. I wanted to scream "It's 90 friggin' degrees! I put in six years of marching band! I know how to do a goddamn pinwheel! I NEED FOOD AND WATER...NOW!" Again, I restrained myself.
After the battlefield tour, we had an hour free for our picnic lunches. I packed a five-star, European-style lunch complete with cheese, fruit, nuts, bread, salami, fizzy lemonade, plastic cups, pita sandwiches, Nutella, crackers and even a vintage tablecloth. Unfortunately, I pretty much dumped it all in a pile on the tablecloth, shoved some pita bread and nuts in my mouth and nearly passed out. I did feel a bit better after lunch, and we ducked into a shop to enjoy the air conditioning.
In the shop, I noticed several boys from Olivia's class showing off the swords and daggers they'd purchased. Only in Gettysburg would you willingly allow your ten-year-old boy to purchase these things. If you were in Target, and your child walked up to you with a bayonet and asked if they could buy it, you'd be like "What the hell is wrong with you, child?! A damn bayonet, were you born in a barn?! Give me that before you hurt someone!" In Gettysburg, however, it's all good. It's "educational." I was glad, at that moment, to have been lucky enough to have given birth to a female.
Next up was the wax museum; I LOVE wax museums. I had forgotten my camera on the bus, so after running to get it, Olivia and I were at the end of the line, where all of the teachers were. I could tell that they, too, were becoming delirious. The wax vignettes were not of Madame Tussaud-quality and in fact one of the vignettes appeared to feature Edgar Allan Poe assassinating a black Abraham Lincoln, but it was cool to see regardless.
©Kari Potochnik
Poe shooting Black Abe.
Back to the bus for my umpteenth makeup application; I didn't recognize myself. The person I was at 12:00am was merely a memory. I now looked like an East End London prostitute who had been given two black eyes and had her eyebrows waxed off. I reapplied anyway, though I wanted to stand up, turn around and weep while shouting, "I'M PRETTY! RIGHT??" More restraint exercised, a smart move on my part.
Off we went to the Shriver House. I hoped Maria and Arnold would be there; they weren't. Instead, we found a female tour guide, dressed in approximately 612 pounds of bodice, skirt, and petticoats. She was also way into her job. She announced that she had been, for many years, a teacher. I could tell she had been an elementary teacher because she repeated everything six times, and then posed everything back at her audience as a question. "We need to stay away from the walls, this house is over 100 years old, and if we lean on the walls we'll crack the plaster and dirty the paint. What are we going to stay away from, folks?? That's right, the walls." I wished I had purchased one of those daggers at this point. Now, this house, being so old, had very narrow staircases, I estimated around four inches wide. There were 23 people in our group, all crammed into an area the size of a Matchbox car, behind ropes. It was 2:00pm on a 90 degree day. We smelled of a barn full of diarrhea-plagued dairy cattle. As we ascended and descended each staircase, I held my breath. It was either pass out from lack of oxygen, or pass out from the unmistakable odor of swamp ass. I took my chances and held my breath.
In the attic of Shriver house, which was incidentally NOT air conditioned, I muttered that I was hot. Mrs. School Teacher, with her bionic ears, heard me and loudly announced, "We don't say 'hot' in the South, we say 'tepid.' We also don't 'sweat.' Ladies glow and men perspire; HORSES sweat." I wanted to say "Well, I'll be damned, Miss, I must be a Budweiser Clydesdale because if you'll kindly place your hand under my breasts, you'll find that my bra is throwing liquid like a hydrant!" I wanted to follow that up with a whinny and a neigh, but again, restraint, restraint, restraint.
After Shriver House, we were ferried to a visitor's center and museum where we were to watch a movie. We were running behind schedule, and the movie was ready to start when we arrived. The visitor's center was staffed by, apparently, retired folks who are passionate about the Civil War. As we walked into the center, we were suddenly surrounded by elderly people, all wearing red polo shirts and headsets and shouting "MOHAWK! THE FILM BEGINS IN EIGHT SECONDS! GO, GO, GO!" They were clearly the Special Ops of the visitor's center, waving their arms around like air-traffic controllers, speaking in code on their headsets, and fervently writing things on their clipboards.
After nearly missing the first 13 seconds of the film (har, har) we settled into the air conditioned theater...for a nap. The movie began. It was narrated by Morgan Freeman, and let's face it, good ol' Morgan could read you a detailed description of a colonoscopy and you'd listen intently. Olivia fell asleep. I sat mesmerized by Morgan's voice. It was over too soon, and we were shuttled out of the theater and up to what they call the "cyclorama" which is just a big painting all over the walls of a round room. Olivia was groggy from her nap, so we found a place out of the way and sat down on the floor. Eight seconds later, one of the white-haired employees approached me and asked "Is she feeling ok?" I answered that she was just tired and a little nauseous. The employee offered "We have a first aid room if you need it." I declined, saying that it had been a long day. "Wow," I thought, "that was nice of her to offer." I thought too soon. "Well," she said, "perhaps you could move somewhere out of the way." Oh. My. God. Really?! Here it comes; what I wanted to say. "Look, lady. I'm running on 20 minutes of sleep. It's hot as Hades out there. I rode on a bus for five hours to get here. I'm sweating like a sumo wrestler in an oven. My kid is cranky. I went mad three hours ago. There is no danger of anyone tripping over me because nobody here can walk anymore. The only thing keeping me from punching you in the throat right now is that I've completely given up on life and I don't want to waste the energy that I'm going to need to get back on the fecking bus to throttle you! Now, STEP OFF!" But alas, I just moved. Out of the cyclorama, down the stairs, straight to the gift shop to ask if they sold cocaine or amphetamines. They did not, so I got a coffee instead.
©Kari Potochnik
Trying to talk Abe into partying with me. He declined.
Finally, it was time for supper, another buffet. The food was decent, but at that point you could have served me a pile of shit on a plate and I'd have eaten it without even asking questions. After I had eaten, I noticed the teachers had congregated in a group and were discussing things about the trip home. They all looked exactly as they had looked at 12:00am. Not a hair out of place, eyebrows intact, not even a hint of the glisten of sweat on brow. I wanted to kill them all, at that moment. For being pretty. For being energetic. For smelling good. I sat on my hands to avoid tragedy.
I also noticed at dinner, that Civil War Man had once again joined us for our meal. Again, he was at a table full of kids and parents. I started wondering if he just showed up like this for the free meals. Was he even employed by anyone specifically? Did anyone know whether or not he was authorized to be at our meals? I convinced myself that he was a homeless person, and had stolen, piece by piece, a Civil War Costume. He had probably watched that Morgan Freeman movie so many times, that he was now a Civil War expert. He had essentially fallen into the deal of a lifetime; two free meals a day, clothes on his back, and instead of shouting Bible verses from a street corner, he was singing about the good ol' North atop a hill full of monuments. I knew, at that point, that I needed a drink, or at least a good psych evaluation.
Finally, after dinner, we boarded the buses for the ride home. I did not bother to reapply my makeup this time. I would have ended up looking like Vanessa Redgrave in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I rammed my earplugs into my ears, got out my book and slouched down in my seat, pressing my knee against the seat in front of me to prevent the occupant from laying down in my lap. It worked. I even heard the girl say "It went back further than this on the way down..." That's right, little girl. It went back further because at that time, it was Kari sitting behind you. Right now, you have the Mad Hatter back here. Don't press your luck. I will shove my leg into this seat until my knee BLEEDS, but I will NOT allow you to disturb my ride home!
I did manage to get some sleep on the way home, and my mood improved a tiny bit. Pulling into the school parking lot, I felt like Harriet Tubman crossing into the North. As we groggily disembarked the coach, God bless her, there stood Olivia's teacher, Mrs. J. saying goodbye to each and every parent and child. Not just saying goodbye, but saying things like "Thanks for coming, Ed. You were a blast. Jen, it was great seeing you. Hannah, get home and get some sleep. Tom, thanks for being a trooper." Had I been a teacher on the trip, I would have jumped MacGyver-style out of the bus a mile before we reached the school and called the police to take me home. Which is why I'm not a teacher.
Looking back on the trip, it really wasn't that bad. I did learn a lot about the Civil War, and I got to eat all that bacon so I really can't complain. Let's just say that I'm glad I only have one child, and that I will never have to take that trip again.
