With The Old Guard

Yesterday made 200 years since the Revolutionary War general Marquis de Lafayette received a hero's welcome here in Louisville, Kentucky.

Part of a more than year long grand tour of the 24 US states, his visit to Louisville had been briefly held up by the unscheduled underwater adventures of the steamboat he was traveling aboard.

For the bicentennial of that visit Lafayette drifted into town again, or at least some historical reenactors playing him and a few local bigwigs from those days.

This time around though, he was accompanied by the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, a band from the oldest active regiment in the Army, the 3rd US Infantry.

Figured the reenactors would be interesting but it was the Fife and Drum Corps that got me out there in the rain to see and shoot.

Neither disappointed but I was completely unprepared for just how surreal the whole scene was. The crowd was a curious mix of media, Masons, and Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution. And smartphones and colonial garb.

Still, that was nothing compared to the mix of pageantry and pat yourself on the back patriotism that just seemed completely disconnected from current realities.

Lafayette participated in three different revolutions in his lifetime, couldn't help but wonder how different his speech would have been if it wasn't a reenactor.

Will probably take something like that to get the old guard to change their tune. On that note, it's time I march on out of here.