Thanksgiving in Gettysburg

Gettysburg is the type of location I usually avoid, not because I dislike history, on the contrary, I firmly believe one cannot go forward without looking back. I avoid these types of places because of the tourists. A crowd of tourists pushes me to the edge of a panic attack. I draw a clear distinction between a crowd of tourists and a crowd on a major city street. Say you are in NYC, there are lots of tourists there, to be sure, but there are also a lot of locals going about their daily lives. Of all the attributes of a city, its people are the one that I learn the most from. The locals in Gettysburg are so entwined with the major source of jobs - namely, the tourism industry - that I cannot distinguish them from the masses and so it all becomes a huge tourist-dominated mess and I run away screaming. In essence, there is no town of Gettysburg, circa 2006, it is, and always will be, stuck in the period of that pivotal battle, as it has every right to, since that event was momentous. But today is different; today the people of Gettysburg have the day off from the daily wave of wide-eyed tourists. Today the people of Gettysburg are doing what every other red-blooded American is doing: watching American football, eating lots of turkey and stuffing, and eating warm apple pie. Today is Thanksgiving in Gettysburg. I have Gettysburg all to myself.

I am walking around the town square of Gettysburg. The small streets that radiate out from the town square are lined with tourist traps. I venture down a few, out of curiosity. I find each shop has a niche but they all take the form of a small museum where the exhibits are for sale. I am window browsing, reading this bit and that bit about the historical finds for sale. The breadth of relics dug up in the nearby battlefields is astounding. One place sells metal detectors, encouraging the visitor to search for their own artifacts. I can’t think of a better way to spend a family vacation, searching for treasure on the bloodiest battlefield of the civil war. I think that is a bit too macabre, even for me. A large window display full of hats takes the edge off. That and Abe.

Now I am walking about Cemetery Hill; it is cloudy, with intermittent sprinkles and silent except for distant gunfire. This is the location of the second day of the battle of Gettysburg. The Union forces had a defensive line at Cemetery Hill and Ridge and withstood the Confederate attacks from three fronts. The area has lots of monuments to various Union soldiers and majors, but the most visual reminders are the large rusted canons. They sit overlooking the valley the Confederate soldiers would have come from; it gives you an in situ view of the strategy used by the Union forces in occupying these high vantage points. The distant gunfire lends reality to my visual cues.

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