Quebec Run Wild Area
Pennsylvania
May 1996
Hiking through the lowlands of the Quebec Run Wild Area in southwestern Pennsylvania, I am transported to another time. Or maybe it is the other guys.
Hiking south on Mill Run Trail, I sense some goings-on off to my left. What-ho? A dozen or more people, dressed in standard garb of the Revolutionary War, of all things. Regimental jackets, breeches with button fly — don’t ask me why I notice the button flies — voluminous white linen shirts, waistcoats, colonial military boots, tricorns.
They carry muskets and rifles. Some have pistols. A group here is examining a large map. A group over there sits together, some pointing this way and that as they address their cohorts.
My hiking trail is close enough that I can hear them talking. Also close enough that when I smile largely and bid them “hello!” they can hear me. They behave, however, as if they do not hear me. They behave as if they don’t see me. As if I am not here.
My initial assumption is that they are members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, or some similar reenactment group, those quirky folk who dress and act out scenes as if from another time, the Revolutionary War for example.
This area that is now the Quebec Run Wild Area was, hundreds of years ago, the scene of various activities involving the military. I wonder now, with their complete lack of response… Heck, with the apparent lack of awareness that I am even here… What if… Maybe… Is it possible that in fact they are not members of a club pretending to be otherwise? What if they really are soldiers from the Revolutionary War, somehow misplaced in time, transported through a tear in the space-time continuum? And because this is how these continua work — they could, you know — they cannot see or hear me. It’s a one-way portal that has opened up; I can see and hear them but the electromagnetic and acoustic waves go in only one direction.
Perhaps I have read too many science fiction stories. But maybe…