Common Sense Reigns, the Future of Kilts Looks Bright

[Rigged]

A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to Florida. We visited the Kennedy Space Center and while standing in line waiting for the tour bus we were approached by a fellow from Oregon with his wife and two children. He said he also owned a Utilikilt and wanted to wear it, but his wife talked him out of it.

[Riverkilt]

Hey Todd,

I'm not a reenactor, but do own a few Union and Confederate reproduction uniforms to wear to various gigs or Veteran's parades.

When I was down in Phoenix it was fun to wear my Union Cavalry outfit over to Home Depot (including the Cavalry Regimental Supply knee boots).

When a young man would stare at me I'd go over to him and whisper in his ear, "Son, don't ever ever ever join the Army" then walk away.

Ron

[davedove]

The funny thing though was at the end of each day my son and I would go out to eat at local restaurants. This is a mountainous region with a limited number of facilities and there are 20,000 people roaming the hills after the games, many of them kilted. I expected to see plenty of fellow kilt wearers but saw none. These games have been a fixture for 50 years up there and you'd think people were used to it but I got the oddest looks when I went inside the restaurants. (Especially the Mexican place. They didn't quite know what to make of me!) I live a couple of hours away and this general area just isn't very accepting of kilts right now. It must be ze fact dat dis ist a German town, yah?

It's okay with me if people only want to wear their kilt at a festival. That's their right. What really amazes me is these same people will go out of their way to change out of their kilt when leaving the event to go out to a restaurant. That makes no sense to me.

[macwilkin]

In fairness to these folks, I wonder if some of these people simply wanted to get out of their kilt after being in it for a weekend? When I was doing Civil War reenacting almost every weekend during my undergraduate days in university, after wearing wool uniforms for the better part of three days, you wanted to have a nice shower & then change into clean clothing. Others might only wear the kilt at festivals because of first-time jitters, etc., but as Dave said, that's all right. At least they're wearing the kilt!

And as far as the "locals" being aware of festivals, don't bet on it. I can't tell you how many times at a reenactment when we made a "beer run" into town in our uniforms and being met with stares and questions like "Are y'all some sort of Amish folks?" (Yes, militant Amish!) And these were small towns, mind you.

Cheers,

Todd

[davedove]

And as far as the "locals" being aware of festivals, don't bet on it. I can't tell you how many times at a reenactment when we made a "beer run" into town in our uniforms and being met with stares and questions like "Are y'all some sort of Amish folks?" (Yes, militant Amish!) And these were small towns, mind you.

Todd is right. I've found that most people, myself included, tend not to remember if an event is occurring unless it falls within their own sphere of interests.

[macwilkin]

Todd is right. I've found that most people, myself included, tend not to remember if an event is occurring unless it falls within their own sphere of interests.

Or at least in our local case, the news media does a poor job of letting folks know that something is even going on. Our Scottish society has a heck of a time getting the local "fishwrap" to even publish our press releases (and I learned how to write them at university with my journalism minor!), and when we have special events at the battlefield, many times the news media will show up on the last day, and then there will follow a couple days of phone calls from folks asking when the next special event is going on. Many times, the media has to "pick and choose", and can't cover everything, in fairness to them. (Please don't think I'm generalizing all media with the "Springfield standard"!)

Cheers,

Todd

[macsim]

Todd is right. I've found that most people, myself included, tend not to remember if an event is occurring unless it falls within their own sphere of interests.

This is true. In the case of Grandfather Mt., as I said you're in the mountains, there are only so many restaurants, etc. I live 2 hours away and we didn't even get an ad in the newspaper. They're simply out of room up there and they don't advertise all that much anymore. However, it does pretty much fill the hotel rooms for the weekend and brings 20,000 tourists in and that area is a center of tourism, not industry. I was really surprised when I left the BBQ restaurant and I was talking to the girls at the cash register, telling them I had expected to see more of my fellow clansmen around. One of them said, "Well don't send them here." I attributed her comment to the fact that she was young and didn't want to deal with a big crowd but come on already! There's gold in them thar hills on that weekend. Make it while you can! That area was hard hit by the remnants of a hurricane last year and you'd think they'd appreciate the business. I'd also agree with the earlier comment that many people simply want to get out of their kilts after wearing them and sweating in them all day.