School Kids' Presentation

Most mornings this week I will be making presentations to elementary school kids. This makes about the fifth year in a row that I have done presentations every day for a week or more in November. A lady who owns a small farm nearby puts together several "stations" of presenters who do show and tell on different aspects of early American life. The groups rotate through each station for about an hour and a half. Today was three groups of about 25 kids each. Tomorrow will be six groups.

I dress in my longhunter garb, talk about a hunter's life in the wilderness, load and shoot my flintlock, talk about general gun safety and start a fire with flint & steel. The kids love it.

Since it's not an isolated farm, I have to shoot blank charges. To simulate the loading of a patched round ball, I make round balls out of aluminum foil. Just roll up balls by hand, patch them and put them in my loading block. It looks like I'm loading the real thing, but when it shoots, the fake balls just unravel in the air about 20 feet from the muzzle. It's realistic and safe. I always pick the foil up off of the ground after the kids leave.

Bill Scurlock