By Charla Wurm-Adams
cwurm@wbcowqel.com
Saturday provided the opportunity for the little boy in everyone to come out to Lowe-Volk Park to play soldier just one more time.
The Crawford Park District hosted the program, “How to Fire a Cannon” which was presented by Bill Anderson and Ron Sanders.The two are from the 7th Company 3rd Regiment of the 1st Continental Artillery. Anderson gave precise instruction to a crew volunteered from the audience to fire quills out of a cannon. It was quite a hands-on experience for everyone.
“Firing a reenacting artillery piece is all about procedure,” Anderson said. “You never vary from the procedure because people for 300 or more years have made enough mistakes and as a learning process, they learned what to do and what not to do.”
Anderson went over just how the troops had to follow commands and strict orders when firing a cannon. He explained the different equipment needed to load the cannon.
Anderson travels around to different reenactments with the cannon to fire it creating a Civil War experience for everyone. Anderson and Sanders make the quills to fire during the reenactments out of straws, gunpowder and Scotch tape.