Keeping It FUN!

by Judi McWilliams

Chris Robins Part One - "The Principal's Office!" Writing about the War of 1812 does seem to take you back in time! This next article is about an extraordinary individual, Mr. Chris Robins, History/Geography Teacher at our local West High School in Cobourg, Ontario and Professional Re-enactor! What takes me back in time, even before we began our interview about the War of 1812 and Mr. Robin’s involvement with re-enacting, is where we met? Recently, I wrote an article about an interview with my nephew Zackery Caron, a student at the West high school. Mr. Robins just happens to be one of Zack’s teachers and is still a mentor in the “life of re-enacting”. What took me way back in time, was waiting “in the principals office” for Mr. Robins. It was a tad humorous, as the students were called to the office over the P.A. system. The look on some of their faces was “fear” (for lack of better word), even though most were being called in just to pick up their report cards! The school is “old”, over 100 years old. It consists of three levels. Apparently it was built over several periods of time, some of the levels are split into half levels, all very confusing! With hesitation I was off and on my way to the third floor, down the hall to room "something or other". Chris met me with enthusiasm and I was instantly put at ease by his "excitement" to talk. I squeezed myself into a "very small" student desk (still designed for right-handed people), so I sat sideways to accommodate for my "left-handedness"! We had about half an hour to talk before we were to head off to the re-enactment training “boot camp”. I wanted to find out about Chris and his involvement with re-enacting! Chris was a student at the West high school and has been teaching history/geography there since 1987. His first experiences with re-enacting began in Norwood, with a local regiment. Here they re-enacted the Civil War period of time as apposed to the War of 1812. He is now involved mainly with the First Kentucky Rifle Regiment Re-enactment Unit, where he devotes his re-enactment time, depending on the time of year. He tells me that there are two types of re-enactors that he spends time with. The students are one type and the other type is his summertime regiment, that Chris calls the “real re-enactors”. Chris seems to always have a gleam in his eyes and a smile on his face, which made me laugh when he told me the difference between student re-enactors and "real re-enactors" are the people with "gun powder"! (To be continued - Part Two)