The normally quiet village like atmosphere of Roose was shattered by the sound of gunfire as I drove back from Holbeck early on Saturday morning. The smoke and the stench of cordite hung in the air like an early morning mist. I could hear the gunfire but it took three circuits of the roundabout before I spotted smoke signals rising from the local Roose Conservative Club. As I cautiously drove into the car park to investigate the smoke got thicker and the gunfire got louder. I expected to see maybe our local goths and chavs in some sort of final confrontation, maybe about which group has the right to hang about outside our local Dalton Road McDs. But no the first character I saw walking across the tarmac was sporting long black hair in a pony tail and was dressed in native American Indian style buckskins. More characters all dressed in various western outfits sauntered out from the bar carrying pints of beer and toting six guns and rifles. None of them took aim at my cab and so I hitched up and had a little mosey around. It was quite a sight to see with confederate soldiers rubbing shoulders with union troops and Indian squaw's sharing cigarettes with buffalo hunters. The gunfire started up again and after I had climbed out from under the taxi, I saw that a posse of lawmen were in the middle of a deadly gunfight with a gang of desperate outlaws. When I saw that no blood was being shed I realised that they were firing blanks and that if I avoided the fierce looking Indian who was sharpening his tomahawk nearby, I should be safe. Turns out it was a meet of a western reenactment group, and boy do they take it seriously with costumes and weapons perfect in every detail, it was just like being on a film set of a shoot em up western..
3 comments:
I find this highly amusing! Having lived most of my life out 'West', I'd say first off there's no real connection between the Civil War and Cowboys & Indians.
Oh, and it looks like the costumes are way too freshly laundered. And there's way too much green grass and not nearly enough authentic dust!
Anyhow, as the whole world knows... REAL westerners, like our VP, tend to not shoot blanks, but instead pepper their republican pals with REAL birdshot!
lol!
john: well I guess it's just some sort of hobby for these folk even though they are thousands of miles from being out West I suppose they can dream!
The real irony is that it's basically a hobby for most of the 'real' cowboys in Wyoming. They still buy their groceries at Wal-Mart... instead of grilling steer over the campfire. It's all just a macho getup basically... like our president.
From the rodeos I've been to, I've noticed that many of the 'real' cowboys who actually work the rodeo circuit are in fact very clean cut & churchy. Not at all in the Hollywood tradition. Ironic.
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