Robinson Crusoe On Mars And My Childhood Journey To The Red Planet

The opening scene to the science fiction cult classic Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964).
US spaceship Mars Gravity Probe One "Eleanor M" on final approach to Mars. 
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

Robinson Crusoe On Mars
And My Childhood Journey To The Red Planet  

By C.W. Roden 

The planet Mars holds a special interest for the human race. Ancient human civilizations worshiped the Red Planet as a god. In more recent times Mars has been a major inspiration for many science fiction and fantasy writers for over the last century. It is certain to be the first planetary body beyond Earth's moon that human beings will set their first footprints.

As a lifelong science fiction fan I've always held a profound fascination with stories and films about Mars. There have certainly been a number of influences over the years, but it all began sometime around the early part of October 1984 with an old science fiction movie and an old modular jungle gym.

At then eight years old I was completely obsessed with two subjects: dinosaurs and space travel. My overactive imagination and tendency to daydream at off times made me sort of an oddball among my peers -- a fact that I must admit still hasn't changed all that much today. Many times I would find myself sitting alone in one corner of the playground, or classroom, with nothing but my trusty collection of dinosaur toys, a stack of library books, and my imagination to keep my company.

Also unchanged since my youth has been my enjoyment of reading and thirst for knowledge. Whenever I became interested in a subject I would go to my local library and seek out as much information about it as my mind could soak up. These days I get my information mostly through the internet and online sources, although I still manage to find my way to the local library that I practically grew up in. In my humble opinion nothing can replace the actual weight and feel of a good book in your hands, or the smell of the ink and glue binding, or the feel of the paper at your fingertips. Screw Kindles!

My obsession with the Red Planet came about sometime in the summer of 1984 when I was first introduced to the ridiculously titled cult classic science fiction film Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964) directed by the legendary Byron Haskin, the genius behind the 1953 film version of H.G. Wells' 1898 science fiction novel War of the Worlds. The screenplay for the film, written by screenwriters Ib Melchior and John C. Higgs, is based on source material from Daniel Defoe's 1719 classic novel Robinson Crusoe. The film was independently made and distributed by Paramount Pictures. 

The robinsonade film follows the adventures of Commander Christopher "Kit" Draper, USN, (actor Paul Mantee) -- astronaut and copilot of the US spaceship Mars Gravity Probe One (MGP-1) "Eleanor M". Draper and his commanding officer, Colonel Dan "Mac" McReady, USAF,  (actor Adam West -- before he put on the Batsuit) and a female monkey named Mona (actually a male monkey named Barney, though the credits simply refer to him as "The Woolly Monkey") are the first human explorers from Earth sent to the Red Planet.

Commander Christopher "Kit" Draper (Paul Mantee) and
Colonel Dan "Mac" McReady (Adam West) aboard
Mars Gravity Probe One "Eleanor M" examining the
surface of the Red Planet.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

In orbit observing Mars, they encounter a large meteor that forces a course correction that sends the trio into a the lower orbit of the Red Planet and uses up their propulsion fuel. With no means of leaving the planetary orbit, the two astronauts and monkey are forced to use a pair of attached landing vehicles to make an emergency landing on Mars and take refuge.

Draper's lander crashes into rocks, leaving him stranded in the middle of what appears to be a fire-covered planet with roaming fireballs. With a limited supply of air and emergency supplies, Draper sets off across the barren and apparently lifeless planet in search of shelter until he can make contact with McReady, who landed nearby.

After encountering some strange yellow rocks that appear to be like some form of coal and the source of the fires, Draper finds a shelter cave. Using a handy device called an Omnicomp (a form of computer, recorder, transmitter and receiver) Draper chronicles his time on Mars, which he admits will be brief. He realizes that the air of the planet is much too thin for humans to breathe for very long, and once his air supply runs out, he will not survive, unless he can make contact with McReady.

Kit Draper discovers the possible source of the fires.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

The next day he goes off in search of McReady's lander over a group of mountains (the film was shot at picturesque Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park, California, USA) and eventually finds -- to his disappointment -- both Colonel McReady's crashed lander and McReady's dead body. He also discovers that Mona has survived the crash and can tolerate the thin air of the planet.
 

Rest in peace, Mac.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

 
Upon returning to the shelter cave, Draper's air runs out and he accepts his inevitable death, collapsing beside the yellow rocks he'd gathered for his fire. To his amazement, he wakes still alive to find that the yellow rocks somehow produce oxygen, possibly the source of the planet's oxygen since there is no vegetation on the planet. Draper manages to learn how to harvest breathable air from the rocks and rig up a breathing apparatus, and conserve air through moderate exertion.

Kit Draper refilling his air tanks.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

   
His biggest problems are now food and water. The spaceship Eleanor M continues to orbit low in the planet's atmosphere, but all attempts to contact the computer and order it to land fail. The ship has no fuel to land or maneuver, and all of the supplies for the journey to Mars remain aboard. Draper himself has only enough supplies of both to last barely two weeks through strict rationing. Mona however doesn't seem to need water much, which puzzles Draper until he follows her and discovers that she has found a pool of water. Draper also finds some form of sea pods growing in the water, that contains edible sausage-like protein.

Kit Draper (Mantee) and Mona (Barney The Woolly Monkey).
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

As the film progresses, Kit Draper encounters the same problem that Crusoe did in Defoe's novel: isolation. With only a woolly monkey for company, Draper argues with an echo of his own voice, and then later begins to hallucinate about his dead friend Colonel McReady visiting him one night after becoming sick from the cooked sausages. 

Despite the dread of being without human company, Draper makes the most of his time on Mars, building a bunch of Robinson Crusoe-type inventions, including a primitive alarm clock in order for him to wake every hour to take in boosters of air from his breather. Another interesting gadget is a primitive bagpipe that he plays Dixie on -- another nice touch this Southern boy thought. He even announces his intentions to Mona that they are going to explore this new world of theirs, since their mission to Mars was for that endeavor.

"Oh I wish I was on Mars, hurray hurray..."
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

It is during one of these exploration trips that Kit Draper discovers a grave and the skeleton of what appears to be a human with a hole in the middle of his forehead, indicating that he was murdered. Realizing he might not be as alone as he thought, and dreading the people who might have done this, Draper removes all outside evidence that he is there, including ordering the crippled Eleanor M to self-destruct.

A short time later, Draper witnesses what appears to be a spaceship landing nearby. Believing them to be a rescue party from Earth, he rushes out to find them, only to see that the ships are not from Earth, but rather some type of alien ship -- the same ones used for the Martian invaders in Byron Haskin's War of the Worlds (1953)....another personal favorite classic of this writer.

Hey those ships look kinda familiar!
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

While observing the strange visitors, Kit Draper encounters an escaped slave (actor Victor Lundin -- best known as the first onscreen Klingon from the original Star Trek series: Errand of Mercy, Season 1, episode 26) whom Draper takes back to his cave and names Friday -- another nod at the film's source material.

Meeting Friday (Victor Lundin).
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

As the movie progresses, we see Draper's attitude towards Friday go from one of mistrust where Draper has Friday do manual labor for him (a fact that bothered me more than a little as a kid, and apparently didn't sit well with actor Paul Mantee either) to one of sympathy when they discover that the alien slave masters slaughtered Friday's fellow slaves and friends before departing with the mined ore. Then when a falling meteor nearly kills Draper, Friday saves his life by pulling him from the choking ashes and giving him a breath pill -- which apparently helps make oxygen in the lungs and bloodstream. This act ultimately causes Draper to trust Friday more and the two walk back to the cave arm in arm, with Kit reciting from the Twenty-Third Psalm.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want..."
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

Speaking of faith, the movie has an interesting scene later on when Draper and Friday are on the run from the alien slave masters and find water. There is a discussion between the two of them about God and the nature of divine order, something that is rarely done in science fiction films these days, except maybe as a way to mock or debunk Christian faith. The scene is well done and shows a dynamic between the two characters and their growing friendship.

Eventually, Kit is able to remove the slave bracelets the alien slave masters use to track Friday and they arrive at one of the polar ice caps of Mars. There after surviving yet another large meteor strike that buries them in an avalanche, the Omnicomp picks up a radio message from an Earth rescue ship. Kit and Friday cheer as they respond to the message, and are greeted by the surprised exclamation: "My god, a voice from Mars!" (the voice provided by director Byron Haskins himself). 

The movie ends with Draper, Friday and Mona rescued and Mars receding into the darkness of space as they return to Earth. 

Kit Draper, Friday and Mona being rescued by an Earth landing craft that apparently doesn't cast
a reflection in the water.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

Thanks to the adventures of Commander Kit Draper, Friday, and Mona -- as well as the creative vision of director Byron Haskins and the people who put together Robinson Crusoe On Mars -- I developed a young boy's fascination with the solar system, particularly with Earth's small red neighbor. The idea of astronauts landing on and actually exploring Mars had the most profound impact on me. The visionary effects in the film (at least for 1964 Hollywood) including the landing craft used by the movie's main character (visionary for its time since it was portrayed several years before the famous Apollo Lunar Module was even off the drawing board) inspired me to read up on the Apollo Moon Landings and space travel theories in general.

As a result of this film, I gathered up every library book about Mars in the junior and adult non-fiction section of my local library and soaked up every little detail about the Red Planet that I could find. After that I found the fiction stories like: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, and certainly A Princess of Mars by Edgar RiceBurroughs. By the time summer vacation ended, I was a regular Martian expert - well, at least I thought so at the time.

The movie -- which I recorded from television back the days when VHS tapes were beginning to come into wide use -- became a favorite of mine. That summer I watched it until I had the dialogue memorized word for word. Even today there's a DVD copy of Robinson Crusoe On Mars from the Criterion Collection complete with extras and commentary from the actors, writers, and director that holds a special place of honor in my movie collection.

Now obviously the entire premise of a man surviving any length of time on Mars without a pressure suit, let alone finding standing water or plant life is ridiculous. Mars as we know it in today has next to no air and no atmospheric pressure tolerable for human life. The images the NASA Mariner 1 and Mariner 2 Probes sent back to Earth in 1965 showed the cratered, moon-like Martian surface devoid of the so-called canals, or ancient cities that astronomers like Lowell and Schiaparelli "discovered" around the end of the 19th century - which also inspired classic science fiction writers like H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs to create amazing stories about life and civilizations on the Red Planet. A decade later in June of 1976 (same month and year I was born) NASA's Viking 1 and Viking 2 probes showed just a cold, dry desert landscape with violent dust storms, rock, and lots and lots of red sand dunes. No ancient city ruins, no vast canal systems artificial or otherwise, no "little green men" or large, four-armed giants, and no nearly naked red-skinned princesses clad only in jewels (damn it!). No surface life of any kind at all.

Of course none of that mattered at all to an eight year old small town Southern boy with a huge imagination and a tendency to daydream constantly during math classes. To that youngster, Mars was the next great frontier.

One of my favorite places at elementary school was an ancient modular jungle gym set between the playground and a dusty red activity field where outdoor P.E. classes were sometimes held. The jungle gym was the exact shape of how my imagination envisioned a Mars Landing Module complete with cockpit and airlock. The red dirt and virtually weed free activity field looked almost exactly like the surface of Mars from the Viking landing probe photos -- minus the pine trees in the background and the blue sky.

So thanks to a (then) twenty year old science fiction movie and my active imagination, on a moderately cool, but slightly sunny day in October of 1984, eight year old NASA Major Carl "Beau" Roden from South Carolina, USA, became the first human being from Earth to set foot on and explore the planet Mars in my unbuttoned light weather jacket, planting humanity's first footprints on the Martian surface in my worn and dirty sneakers.

For the next couple of months, or so, while my other male classmates were into contact team sports, or the popular classic G.I. Joe and Transformers action figures, I was an astronaut/space explorer; a combination of Kit Draper, Neil Armstrong, and James T. Kirk, making huge scientific discoveries by collecting rock, soil and plant samples in my empty lunch containers. I even got to discover (with the help of my trusty dinosaur toy collection) the existence of miniature dinosaurs on Mars! At other times I pretended to be a castaway who crashed on Mars, writing out S-O-S in huge letters in the red dirt, or with lined up rocks big enough for rescue ships to see. Every once in awhile a couple of classmates would act as my crew members, at least for a few days before getting bored and again leaving me marooned all alone on the "Martian" surface.

The gears of a young boy's mind turn very quickly though. By the time spring arrived "Mars" was again an activity field and taken over by the rest of my third grade class. I would soon be joining my classmates in group soccer games, where I had the distinction (usually against my will) to be goalie and collecting bumps and bruises when I was not daydreaming between goal attempts. Mars and my adventures there were soon replaced by my next big obsession, namely trying to -- and usually failing -- to be a good goalkeeper. 

Soon other obsessions and short-term life goals took higher priority in my life, not least of which was later surviving the urban jungles of Middle School and High School -- not an easy task for a tall, skinny kid who was shy, socially inept and possessed zero athletic ability to speak of outside being fairly average at kickball. 

Even so I've never quite forgotten my boyhood dreams of Mars, dreams kept alive thanks to great science fiction writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, and others. Those dreams continue to be kept alive with the growing popularity of ideas like Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct and great movies like The Martian (2015) based on an excellent robinsonade book by Andy Weir. 

Mars continues to invite us through fiction and science to explore its many mysteries. We know that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars. Did life exist there, and does it still do so under the surface? If we find fossilized microorganisms there, and those organisms appear like similar ones here on Earth, then what does it say about the origins of life in our solar system and the universe? And finally the ultimate goal of human expansion into the solar system and possibly beyond. Could we build a successful colony on Mars? Build terrariums in the craters and smaller valleys of Mars and create Earth-like biospheres? Could we even develop the technology in a few hundred years to successfully terraform the planet and make it Earth-like on the surface with an atmosphere that can sustain human life? Could the Red Planet someday be a second home for humanity?

It is possibly we will actually see human exploration of Mars within the next 30 years. If so I also wonder if someone will be stranded there by some accident, like Commander Kit Draper and my highly imaginative eight year old self, and if they could find a way to survive through good ole human ingenuity.

Alone on Mars.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures & The Criterion Collection)

A Most Rewarding (And Frightening) Experience -- My First Public Speaking Presentation

Public speaking -- DOOM!

Greetings and Salutations, Y'all!

Folks, as a writer and blogger nothing could me more rewarding for me than to learn that something I have written has touched, or inspired someone to learn. 

I would like to call your attention to my blog post from Monday, April 8th debunking Black Confederate Denial. 

Apparently my humble defense of Confederate veterans of color and dissection of the arguments of Black Confederate Deniers has garnered a number of rather spirited debates on several other blogs and Civil War sites. It is currently the second-most viewed article on my blog with a whopping 28,903 hits to date! Certainly it has garnered more hits in a vastly shorter amount of time than the current record keeper -- not too bad at all. 

My article has received wide praise of many of my peers in the Southern heritage defense community, and deafening silence from several "history" bloggers (sic) who make a living off the denial and denigration of non-white Confederate veterans -- my reputation as The Man Deniers Fear The Most is still secure apparently.  

Well, not total silence from the Denier community. 

Civil War Talk website devoted an forum on the discussion of my blog post. The discussion went on for a couple weeks apparently with both sides taking vigorously debating the points of my blog post. Those defending black Confederate veterans made some outstanding points, and those who support the Denier's argument were....uh, predictable, though made respectfully for once. My complements on the moderators who run the site for keeping the discussions civil. The site definitely gets four stars. 

I was also deeply honored to receive a short personal review from none other than Mr. Tony Horwitz, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Confederates In The Attic (1998). Sadly, Mr. Horwitz passed away on May 27th, about two weeks after I received his message. I will always be thankful that a man like Mr. Horwitz took the time to message a simple small-town country writer like yours truly -- I'm actually getting goosebumps as I write this. 

All-in-all, not too bad for a guy from a small town in upstate South Carolina who blogs about local history, amateur astronomy, and various assorted other topics and travel photography. 

So imagine my surprise when I was contacted a month after posting my article by a middle school history teacher who asked if I would like to come talk to her class about my article and the subject of Black Southerners from South Carolina who were loyal to Dixie and fought for the Confederacy.

Apparently one of her students wrote a history paper on the subject and sited my article as a primary source. She informed me that the paper was so well received by the rest of the class that she had to contact me. When the teacher found out I was local (within 50 miles or so relative to where I live), she asked if I would consent to come speak about the subject to two of her history classes the following Friday. 

When I received her message, I accepted the offer -- although right afterwards I did kinda start to have second, and third thoughts about the whole thing. 

You see folks, I do not do well with public speaking at all. In fact speaking in front of crowds of any size always makes me extremely nervous. 

A part of this comes from my personal Autism spectrum issues, notably my inability to really look people in the eyes for more than a second, or so; as well as social anxieties and my lack of ability to mentally filter out noises -- meaning that in crowds of people talking I cannot focus on one voice, or conversation, and get all the sounds overlapping. It can be extremely stressful and why I largely avoid big indoor crowds for extended periods of time. 

Whenever I go to a place like an outdoor fair, or comic con, I usually try to attend early, or on days when the events are not so big. I feel a bit claustrophobic when the crowds start getting larger, and more often than not I have to go someplace by myself for a few minutes, just long enough to be away from people and crown noise to center myself again. 

It actually turns out that my condition isn't that uncommon, especially for people on the autism spectrum. Avoiding eye contact, awkward with small-talk, displaying introverted behavior -- all me. Most times I usually manage very well, and have only rarely ever had a severe panic attack.

The absolute worst panic attack I've ever had was about seven years ago in a large shopping center that I'd never been in before in a neighboring county with my grandmother Carolyn (God rest her soul!) and youngest brother, Alex. It was a few weeks before Christmas and the store was packed full of loud people, even louder little kids that seemed to love testing the acoustics in the store with their little voices, and a very loud female voice on the PA system that went off seemingly every 30 seconds, or a minute. It was the first time I'd ever just shut down. Normally, I'd just leave the cart and walk outside to the parking lot and let myself calm down. This time, I literally sat on a bench in the men's shoe isle and closed my eyes, shaking and breathing erratically. I apologized to my family and told them I would be in the car waiting -- and promptly got the hell out of that store. 

Needless to say, I felt like a complete loser that day.

Now when I was in school I always hated going to the front of the class, or standing at my desk to do a book report. I would stammer over my words and sometimes miss a word, or half-a-dozen.

Add to this the fact that, aside from the original blog post I'd written, I didn't have any sort of planned presentation and had to make one up from scratch with about three days notice -- I was contacted on Monday evening of that week and had three whole days to come up with a presentation of some kind. 

I also spent a good deal of that time consulting several websites and online videos that dealt with the art of public speaking and tricks to get through it. 

Finally after burning the midnight oil well past my usual bedtime the day before, I was able to finally come up with a presentation outline, some printed photos, and various stories about Black Confederate Veterans from South Carolina and their service. 

Now I had one final question: what to wear? 

According to all the sites I consulted, physical appearance is a huge thing when it comes to offering a presentation. While I am no fan of judging one based on their physical appearance and manner of dress, I had no serious plans to go in wearing one of my usual rock band t-shirts and camouflage cargo pants -- I'm certain one of my Hawaiian shirts would probably not go over well in terms of my presentation either. 

I did briefly consider donning my Confederate gray uniform and kepi hat, but ultimately rejected that idea as a bit too showy. I did however have every intention of presenting my support for Confederate heritage in my appearance. I did include the kepi as part of my presentation, along with my wide-brim brown uniform hat.

I finally decided that I would go with a clean pair of blue jeans, a white button-up, my gray sports coat, and black tennis shoes. On my jacket I wore a white lapel pin featuring two very small Dixie Cross battle flags. I also wore my belt with the Confederate battle flag buckle.

I had maybe about six hours of decent sleep before waking up the next morning and heading out, completely anxious about the events to come. I stopped for a couple of sausage biscuits and an orange juice before driving nearly forty miles to my destination, an undisclosed middle school in upstate South Carolina, arriving a little bit before 9 A.M. 

After I arrived, I had to be buzzed in through the school's front door and get a visitor's pass at the front office. A school resource officer greeted me and asked to check my carry bag politely. 

Now here is where I was concerned if I would have had issues. 

If the man had requested that I remove my lapel pin (my belt buckle was hidden behind my then buttoned jacket at the time), in all honesty, I would have left right then and there -- partly out of strict principle, and also partly because I was beginning to get butterflies in my stomach over the whole thing. There was a folded Army of Northern Virginia patterned battle flag in my bag, along with a couple of folders of papers and notes for the presentation. Again, if I had been asked to surrender it, I would have politely declined and left on principle.

Thankfully neither the resource officer, nor any of the teaching staff made such a request. In fact everyone was quite polite to me. Also it wasn't as if I planned on running down the hallways waving a Confederate battle flag in the first place.

The teacher who invited me appeared and also seemed pleased to meet me. We'll call her Miss G because she kinda reminded me a little bit of Miss Grotke, the teacher from the cartoon series Disney's Recess -- and I mean that as a complement. We engaged in a little small-talk (something else I'm not really good at for the most part) and she told me about the students and how much she enjoyed reading the history posts on my blog, especially my Revolutionary War stuff. 

Miss G led me to her classroom where she told me two of her history classes were going to gather. That one threw me off a bit. Two?! At the same time?! She informed me that the other class usually had study hall time, but that the ones that wanted to see the presentation were going to be present. 

The classroom had a whiteboard with my name written on the left side with a list of daily activities. I saw that I was slated for the 3rd and 4th period classes. Miss G had already provided me a table and a chair for me to set up. There was also a class already there full of middle school kids talking loudly and getting ready to go to their next class. The bell rang and they left, giving me a few quiet minutes to set up. 

Quiet being a relative term. The hallway outside the open doorway was full of teenagers talking loudly and laughing. I was beginning to feel a little more anxious. I focused on preparation. I placed the flag (which is about 20 inches square) on top of the table, then started arranging the papers and photos on top of them as a display. Then I set some personal notes aside and sat going over them as the students came in. A few of them came over and looked at the stuff on the table, including a small display box with a few Civil War era bullets -- which turned out to be a bit hit with a few of the students, as was my replica gray kepi that included the black cockade with the Confederate uniform button.

For my part after making sure my notes were in order -- all five pages worth -- I sat there in the chair and kinda closed my eyes in an effort to center myself. Miss G did ask me politely if I was okay, and then told me that she recognized my symptoms being the mother of an Aspie child herself, and a nearly 20 year teaching veteran. I gave a smile and assured her I was okay, and adjusting; though I was being slightly less than honest. I took a deep drink of the bottle water I brought with me and then looked at the assembled students -- all 47 of them. I counted each row and the ones sitting in the back in chairs, apparently from the other class she mentioned. 

All-too-soon, the bell rang and the class period began. Miss G called the class to order and talked to the students as I sat there, looking out over at the faces. Book report flashbacks were coming to me BIGTIME now. I remember unbuttoning my coat in an effort to relax a bit more. My white shirt was a bit sweaty under my armpits -- thankfully I have good deodorant and was wearing plenty of aftershave! I also noticed my hand was shaking a tiny bit. I took a few deep (though not overtly obvious) breaths to calm myself and focus on the task at hand. 

I barely remember Miss G actually introducing me, though I do remember her telling one students -- a boy named Gerald -- to stand up. It was the young man who wrote the original report on Black Confederate Veterans. I gave the young man a small nod and a grin. 

A moment later, the floor was mine and the class applauded politely. I stood and went over to the front of the whiteboard. I bit my lip and then cleared my throat trying to remember what I'd read about public speaking. 

I started out making a small personal joke at my expense apologizing to the students for the glare, and rubbing the top of my shaved bald head. That got a laugh from the students and a chuckle and encouraging nod from Miss G. I started to feel a bit more relaxed and then asked if everyone could hear me properly. After being assured by the kids in the back they could hear my usually quiet voice, launched into the subject of Black Confederate Veterans and their service in the war. 

One of the things I really worried about was my usual tone of voice. I know that I don't have a really good public speaking voice. I also tend to sound sarcastic at times when I don't intend to -- a problem I've had my whole life also slightly related to the autism spectrum. 

I was also concerned that the topic would bore most of the students since it mostly concerned men (and at least one woman) who spent much of the War Between The States preforming service tasks with occasional combat service -- particularly the drummers who stood with their units in battle. In the few instances of actual combat I described where one of the subjects actually carried a weapon, or picked one up and joined the fight, I made certain to convey to the students that no war is any sort of adventure; and I certainly wasn't shy on describing the possible fates of those left wounded in battle. 

On an interesting note during my presentation a few more students (likely the ones who decided to opt out of study hall) and a couple of teachers arrived and also joined us. These mostly sat, or stood, in the back quietly to hear what I was saying.

I finished my presentation off by telling the students that the men who served on both sides in the war deserved to be remembered respectfully as individuals with dreams of their own. That their memories and the history they were a part of helped to define the nation and the people we are and strive to be today. 

After what felt like about forty hours (but in reality was about 35 minutes, or less) I was finally off this roller-coaster ride, having survived my first real public speaking engagement. 

When I concluded, I was once again applauded. I opened the floor to questions, and got about a dozen of them from curious students asking about specific people I mentioned in the presentation, or general ones about Black Confederate Veterans, or the United States Colored Troops. Overall, the students surprisingly asked some really intelligent questions. More than a few came up to the table to look at the pictures and the displays I brought. I was asked questions about the bullets, the replica Confederate uniform, and certainly about the Confederate battle flag itself -- all of which I was really happy to answer. 

When the bell rang, the students left to go to their next classes, or to the first lunch period. As I put away my stuff, Miss G personally thanked me for my time and congratulated me on getting through the presentation. She knew it wasn't easy for me, but told me that I did very well. I almost felt as if I was one of her students who just gave a report. She was truly a kind woman. 

Now at this point I expected to simply leave, but Miss G and one of the other teachers invited me to stay long enough to join them at the Teacher's table in the cafeteria for lunch -- my reward for the good job I'd done. They also gave me $20 for gas money for the distance I'd traveled, and which I readily admit I didn't try all that hard to decline.

So in the end I found myself sitting in a noisy cafeteria with several middle school teachers enjoying school cafeteria food, something that I hadn't had in roughly half a century. I enjoyed the meal, which turned out to be baked chicken and vegetables with a fruit cup and milk. I got a laugh from Miss G and the teachers when, during the small-talk I managed to get through somehow, I confessed that I was disappointed to learn that the schools don't still make what I half-jokingly refer to as that rectangular "cheese on cardboard" pizza that my generation was privileged to have. I mean I get that the new menus are meant to be slightly healthier in terms of nutritional value, but still I feel this generation is totally missing out.

RIP Cafeteria food of my misspent youth!

That my friends and fellow travelers is the story of my first public speaking presentation, and how I barely overcame and survived my social anxiety disorder -- at least this time around. In all seriousness though, I truly enjoyed speaking to the students and teachers and sharing my knowledge with them.

Would I be anxious for a repeat performance anytime in the near future?  Uh, well....let me get back to y'all on that one. For now, have a wonderful Dixie day and y'all come on back now, ya hear?