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Neighborhood report

The greatest escape

Jesse Marshall's way of getting away from everyday life takes him to a faraway place - and time.

By JESSICA KLIPA
Published December 30, 2005

Imagine this.

You're in the midst of battle and men are dropping around you. It's you or the Seminole Indian who's about to send an arrow through your head.

Then the cell phone rings. It's the girlfriend, and she's not happy.

"Hello."

"Where are you?"

"I'm at battle. Where do you think I . . .? "

"Hello. Hello. Answer me. You did not just hang up on me."

Sound crazy? Thanks to the stringent regulations at Dade's Battlefield, it would be difficult for a re-enactor to smuggle a cell phone into the camp. But not everyone follows the rules. Just ask Jesse Marshall.

Marshall, 29, is a re-enactor who meets his doom year after year by participating in the event that went down in history as Dade's Massacre. After all, who needs PlayStation 2 when you can take up hand-to-hand combat?

Re-enactors don't just push a few buttons to claim the victory. They participate in events that portray how people would live in another time. From dressing up in old-fashioned clothes to taking on a period mind-set, it's a hobby that gives some history buffs an excuse to escape the modern era.

Everybody, whether they want to admit it, has an escape. For the drunkard, it's the right number of Bud Lights to numb life's troubles; for the glutton, it's another Krispy Kreme doughnut.

Marshall's escape happens to be re-enacting. When he's not admiring Seminole war artifacts or discussing historical discrepancies, he's reliving history. But no matter how hard he tries, no matter where he turns, modernity always finds a way to intrude.

For instance, he hadn't even made it to the battlefield last year when the 21st century almost finished him off. Clad in his blue wool uniform, Marshall was leading a group of men on a commemorative march when he decided to let everyone go at their own pace.

He tried so desperately to ignore the pavement beneath his feet and the power lines that loomed overhead that he didn't flinch when the cars traveling along U.S. 301 whizzed by.

Until, out of the corner of his eye, he spied a rock truck headed his way. Too bad he left his modern glasses at home. He would have seen it sooner.

Marshall and the soldier behind him managed to dodge the truck, escaping with a few pebbles pelting their legs.

The other soldiers surrounded the scene and jumped onto the truck's cab to make sure the driver was not hurt, leaving another re-enactor, Ross Lamoreaux, to direct traffic.

"There's always a realization that you can't get back to that time period," Marshall said.

Every time he jumps into that uniform and heads to battle, Marshall does everything to thwart the advances of modern intrusion.

At first glance, Marshall looks enough like a soldier standing at attention with his black leather hat. No one would ever mistake his wool trousers for a popular outfit. He'd be the first to tell you how much his feet ache in those square-toed, leather shoes. They hardly rival the comfort of the latest Air Jordan.

He carries with him a barrel pipe canteen that looks nothing like an Adidas water bottle and a .69-caliber musket that's just a little less efficient than today's AK-47.

What Marshall doesn't want to think about is that reality doesn't always fit into his so carefully researched persona. Too bad his uniform came in a kit ordered from a tailor and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. Marshall's uniform is a replica all the way down to the stitching.

"I cheated with the modern thread," he admitted. "But, I did hand-sew it."

It's amazing how a little bit of tobacco rolled up in the wrong wrapper has its way of causing an uproar in the camp.

Say, for instance, you're on the battlefield after a long day of fighting and dusk has just settled in. A soldier reaches into his pack and pulls out what is supposed to be an authentic, rolled cigar from the 1830s. Instead, it's a Marlboro.

And then, the unthinkable happens. The soldier lights his Marlboro with modern matches.

"Who cares if it's the quickest way? You're still offending me," said Steve Saunders, who uses a tinderbox and lucifer to light his pipe.

As odd as it may seem, this period mind-set makes perfect sense to the re-enactors. It's no different from the avid reader who becomes outraged when a telephone ring disrupts his concentration.

Even Marshall and his friends know that pure escapism is impossible. When they aren't at war with the Seminoles, they spend their weekends at Fort Foster on U.S. 301, showing visitors how soldiers would have lived in the 1830s.

One afternoon, Marshall leaned up against the fort wall with one leg propped up. His trousers hung from only one shoulder, making him look not much like a soldier.

"If we think on it real hard, we can almost ignore the sounds of traffic moving along 301," he said.

Tours of Fort Foster are held at 2 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. Sundays beginning the first weekend of February. For more information, contact Hillsborough River State Park, 15402 U.S. 301 N, at (813) 987-6771.

[Last modified December 29, 2005, 08:40:09]