Charlie Crescenzi is a retired Dover-area teacher.
He is a retired York County Heritage Trust educator.
And now he lives in the South, in South Carolina, in fact.
So he speaks from a number of platforms, particularly in agreement with my recent blog posts (Tramp on user experience, I and Tramp, II) and York Sunday News column against further commercialization of the Gettysburg Battlefield with a proposed gambling casino and ever-increasing ghost tours.
When he speaks to other history enthusiasts down there, they often reply that visiting Gettysburg is their goal.
He e-mailed:
Of course, Southerners have a different perspective on that battle. When I warn them that they have to fight their way through the schlock you described so well, they look shocked. The much smaller Revolutionary War battlefields near us, Cowpens and King's Mountain for example, do not have the depressing litter of commercialism surrounding them.Of course things move on, we can't be captives to a dead past. This type of exploitation is something different. Such blatant disrespect for the events of those sad days in July of 1863 is a disgrace. When you hear the folks who lost ancestors attacking Cemetery Ridge, Little Round Top and the other spots we who grew up there know so well saying "that's a shame," you know something is wrong. I hope you and all the others who are fighting the crass money-grubbing prevail.
Some people, of course, disagree with the sentiment expressed by Charlie and me. You can read them here and here.
Of course, 272 Civil War historians agree with us - at least on the gambling issue.
But I stick to my guns. Ghosts and gambling trample on user experience at Gettysburg.
Neither do Shiloh or Fort Pillow have the clutter that is found in Gettysburg.