If you are not
deep into the hillbilly culture you may not know about a little
cos-play reenactment festival that is held several times a year
around the country known as the Mountain Man Rendezvous. Modeled
after the twice yearly trading meetings held by trappers and hunters
to trade furs for supplies the modern rendezvous has a lot more
kettle corn than the original but is otherwise identical. I jest, it
is mainly middle aged men wearing leather clothing and using 19th
century arms for contests of skill. There is also more commemorative
plates featuring reproductions of the James Fraser 'End of the Trail'
statue than at the original rendezvous. Justin and his family loved
the Mountain Man and his dad had a full blown leather suit, black
powder guns and the whole nine yards. I was able to go with them one
year and when we drove into the valley where it was being held it was
awesome to behold the teepee's and wall tents and it really looked
like the past only cleaner with a lot more station wagons. We got out
and walked around to the different booths and vendors most people
were dressed to some degree in primitive clothes and they were
shooting guns and cannons, in short it was the greatest thing I had
ever seen. I wanted to be a mountain man so badly they all had great
clothes, guns, and knifes; they lived off the land and didn't need
help from no one. They had some Indian dancers come and do a couple
traditional dances which was awesome as well. They had shooting
contests, knife throwing contests, tomahawk throwing contests, and
archery contests for all age groups so I gave a few of them a try. It
may not seem like it would be hard to throw a tomahawk thirty feet
and then stick it in the end of a stump but it turns out there is
some skill to it. My first couple of throws missed the stump quite
badly which was a harsh reality check for the image of the martial
prowess that I supposed myself to have based on my fantasizing. We
had lots of fun and came home the next day tired and happy. I was so
excited that I wrote in my journal, which I rarely did, that I wanted
to be a mountain man when I grew up. I did write that I could be a
mountain-man-paleontologist, really the best of all possible
scenarios in the mind of a pre-girl interested boy. After my trip to
the rendezvous I practiced throwing a hatchet a lot which is
basically like a tomahawk just available at army/navy stores for 5
dollars. Despite my intense interest the desire to dress in leather
clothing and trap for a living never translated into anything more
concrete and I sadly am not a mountain person.
