Pandemic May 3, 2020 - at home with history EAL

One day visiting a local library I passed a "FREE Give Away" table with stacks of Early American Life Magazine being offered to take.
At that time, I was a docent at the James and Ann Whitall House in Red Bank Battlefield, National Park, NJ, so I picked up an armful of the magazines and took them home.  It was love at first sight!  
I have been subscribing now for years, more than 15 years.  

First I had to give up my volunteer work due to deteriorating knees and spine and I couldn't stand for 4 hours, our usual shift, and at that time, there were no chairs permitted to be sat upon.  Most of the furnishings, with some notable exceptions, are reproductions, but apparently they had been getting more fragile in their joints, too, so we couldn't, under that governance, sit in them anymore.  So I had to leave.  

The administrative staff has taken many turns since those days, and now we can sit, and we can wear regular guide style clothes and are not required to wear authentic Colonial clothing - not comfortable those heavy and may layered outfits.  So I joined back up, but have not been able to start the new season due to the pandemic.  

In fact, for some years after my retirement in 2006, my car was in good shape, I was in good shape, and I drove all over South Jersey finding historic places, tracking dog log cabins, noting down the names of places where something happened and then driving to them, Hancock's Bridge, for example.  Then my car got old and I got old and I stayed mostly in the rich historical environs of my area, Gloucester County, Camden County, and the Pine Barrens.

So now with the pandemic, we are all really living circumscribed lives and reading EAL is the only way I can visit historic sites.  
This latest issue, June 2020, features a wealth of interesting and personally touching articles.  The one on 'yellow ware' pottery reminded me of family china that I have, and the article on Thomas Paine reminded me of the sites in Bordertown which I visited where he lived for a decade from 1778 to 1787.  There is a historical marker there, if I remember correctly.

If you are craving some interaction with Colonial historical places and things but are confined to home, get a subscription to Early American Life and you can travel with the authors by pictures and essays since you can't go in person.

Happy trails, whatever kind you follow! Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com