Surreal

The puppy got us up early this morning. She decided she had no interest in being in her crate this morning, and got us up early. I was flipping channels while contemplating showering, and came to the History Channel. To my great surprise, there I was on the screen. It was very strange.

In 1999, I was asked to be a talking head in an installment of an hour-long documentary on John Buford then being shot by Greystone for a new series called “The Unknown Civil War”. In March of that year, I went to Gettysburg and met the producer. It was early March, but it was uncommonly warm, nearly 70 degrees, although a violent cold front that would cause the temperature to drop about 40 degrees in no time flat was on its way. It arrived the next day.

That evening, he and I had a couple of cold adult beverages at the Farnsworth House tavern, and then the next day, we went to shoot the film. I woke up REALLY sick that morning, with a very nasty sinus infection. I felt like hell all day, and we regularly had to interrupt shooting in order to blow my nose and try to clear my throat. I managed to struggle my way through the thing, and to my great amazement, I don’t sound as bad as I felt that day, although I certainly know just how sick I was. On top of all of it, it started snowing while I was sitting out on the eastern spur of McPherson’s Ridge, overlooking Iverson’s Pits, filming my portion of the documentary.

A massive cold front blew through that night, meaning that my flight went nowhere (they had flown me into Harrisburg), and I had no more clean clothing. Fortunately, they put us up in a hotel, but I was only supposed to be gone one night, and that’s all the clothing, etc., I had with me. It was really kind of gross having to put on the same clothing again the next day, but I didn’t have much in the way of choices.

I have, of course, seen the video before, and even own a copy of it. However, this series has not aired on the History Channel previously, and it was really a surrealistic surprise seeing a younger version of myself (without the gray hair) on TV this morning.