Well, the inevitable milestone I’ve been dreading all year is just about upon us. Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. And yes, I’m depressed. And yes, I will be drowning my sorrows in chocolate cake. But for now, at least for a few more hours, I’m still in my twenties and in honor of 29 years of shenanigans, I present to you the Top 29 History Related Shenanigans I’ve Pulled. Or Experienced. Or Witnessed. Or Whatever. In no particular order:

1. Fired a Revolutionary War cannon
2. Played Beethoven’s 9th on a colonial-era harpischord
3. Ran away in terror from a screech owl in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg because I thought it was a ghost
4. Made out with a guy I met online behind a monument on Culp’s Hill (I ended up marrying him, soo…)
5. During the “Siege and Capture of Harpers Ferry” program at Harpers Ferry, I smacked a Confederate Soldier with a broom when he tried to rob my Dry Goods Store
6. Rode in a wagon travelling at a frightening pace down Harpers Ferry’s Shenandoah Street, screaming “Down with King Alcohol!” and waving banners for the Temperance Movement of the 1860s
7. Lost my virginity on a Civil War Battlefield
8. Drove two hours to see Wounded Knee and didn’t even get out of the car because a large native man with a big stick scared the crap out of me
9. Got engaged on Devil’s Den
10. Potentially saw a ghost on the field where Pickett’s Charge took place
11. Made, ate, and enjoyed hardtack
12. Tied up by Native Americans for a kidnapping demonstration at a French and Indian War encampment (there’s no easy way to explain this one)
13. Rode a segment of the the Erie Canal on a barge pulled by mules
14. Worked on a archeological dig of an early antebellum house. Found some nails and broken pottery.
15. Ran around the grounds of Jefferson Davis’s final home, Beauvoir, looking for a mule’s grave. Found it. Took a picture.
16. Climbed to the highest point accessible to tourists on the USS Alabama in Mobile, Alabama
17. Saw a spider the size of a frog at Monocacy Battlefield and made The Hubs carry me back to the car
18. Slept on the battlefield at New Market
19. Attended a WWII living history/weapon demonstration and didn’t pee my pants when I heard someone say, “I didn’t know the Nazi’s made it all the way to Pennsylvania.”
20. Sewed a collar on antebellum sewing machine and determined I could hand sew faster
21. Slept on the battlefield at Cedar Creek
22. Was asked to leave the Old North Church in Boston for stumbling into places not accessible to tourists
23. Participated in a Civil War hospital demonstration tending to disemboweled soldiers and soldiers with sucking chest wounds. Got blood on my dress. One spectator almost threw up.
24. Climbed up the ladder of our church’s old bell tower with my best friend and her brother and got in trouble for sitting on the rafters above the sanctuary. You might say this is not history related. I say indeed it is, as almost eighteen years later, the door to the bell tower still has a padlock on it. That’s history.
25. Handstitched The Hubs’ reenacting trousers by candlelight, when he blew the crotch out of his pants setting up the tent
26. Was on “house arrest” in Stipes Boarding House in Harpers Ferry for being a spy
27. When I was 17, I portrayed Betsy Ross in our town’s 4th of July celebration wearing a dress my mom had made for me…when I was in 5th grade
28. Almost fell off a levee at Chalmette Battlefield outside of New Orleans
29. Took a flash photo in a non-flash photo area of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria.

So, here’s to the next 30 years! Lets see what kind of trouble I can get into, now that I’m, “old enough to know better!”