I’ve lived in Virginia for 18 years without making it up to the site of the first major battle of the Civil War — and then there was a last-minute mission to get my boys to the Green Day concert just down Lee Highway from the Manassas Battlefield . . .

(Don’t worry, I got my Cool Dad badge LAST summer when I actually went into the Green Day concert in downtown DC with my boys. But this time the concert was at an outdoor theater, and it hit 101 degrees today, and, well . . . )

Manassas was the site of the first major battle of the Civil War. And the feel of today’s battlefield park is just right. Thank goodness these rolling hills are not covered with condos. Though the Manassas Battlefield is only a mile or so north of Interstate 66, you can stand here and feel the struggle of men and guns up and down these hills (and why holding the high ground was so important). There WAS a modern road cutting through the park, but seeing the modern rush hour traffic jammed on its two lanes did not feel overwhelming — it just reminded me of the traffic jam that came at the end of the First Battle of Manassas, as Union soldiers and spectators rushed over each other down that very same roadway to get back to the safety of DC!!

I love visiting Civil War battlefields in the late afternoon. Battles usually ended at sunsdown anyway, so it’s a good time to feel the peacefulness and consider the bravery and the terrible pain that happened on this ground — and the ideas that brought people here in conflict.

I feel restored and inspired from having walked through the quiet grass of Manassas. Now back to Paneras to wait for the concert to end!

I love the smell of History in the morning!

When I visited last week, I discovered that less than 100 yards  from George Washington’s mansion — one of the most famous and beautiful homes in America — is his OPEN-AIR DUNG SHED!!!! Archaeologists found the brick foundation, so we KNOW it was there, a safe place to keep old crap for later use as fertilizer on one of Washington’s five farms. This is the best proof I know that Washington considered himself a serious and innovative farmer.

This is the kind of lively detail I’ll put in a new biography of the nation’s first president. The folks at Mount Vernon called me up for meetings this past week to discuss how I can help them update their materials for teachers and students, and I’m excited — but not because I will start from scratch.

I’ve certainly drawn a lot about Washington already, and parts of his story are among the most well-known pieces of American history covered in the nation’s classrooms. What excites me specifically is the chance to build on what Mount Vernon already did in 2006 when it opened a state-of-the-art education center. At the time I covered the opening as a reporter, and the center got a lot of attention for three lifelike statues of GW created by CSI techniques. But every time I go back I see more details and bolder storytelling than I noticed before. It’s an amazing achievement for a historical figure that everyone thinks they know.

I hope to live up to those high standards as I embark on The Definitive George Washington Biography Comic Book!!

In March 2010 my sons and I did our first overnight Civil War reenactment. The first big battle of this year had gorgeous weather and a good location, so it drew thousands of reenactors from as far away as Maine and Florida, and I got a good feel for some of the history I’ll be drawing soon for the 150th anniversary of the war.

Samuel and Truman and I have camped for years with the Boy Scouts. For the Civil War reenacting, it was fun to be in a campsite with no Coleman stoves — cooking over an open fire the way I did when I was a teenager in Boy Scouts back in the distant 1980s. There were so many campfires that by Saturday night the NC woods were thick with blue smoke — I had to go out onto an open field to clear my eyes. Now THAT’S getting a feel for history!

At Civil War events I portray a freelance cartoonist who draws battlefield scenes for the New York papers and magazines — not too big a stretch for me! The Battle of Bentonville was so big that it had a great diversity of reenactors. I mixed in with many women and children in period clothing, and near the sutlers row was a mobile blacksmith! I was fascinated to see him work out of this cart. That must have been a vital skill to bring along with an army, which would have needed frequent repairs to equipment.

The Battle of Bentonville lasted three days in March 1865, just a few weeks before Lee’s surrender to Grant in Virginia. Bentonville was the Confederate attempt to stop Gen. William T. Sherman from getting to Grant to help surround Lee — and the Confederates succeeded, but by the end of the three days Sherman still had about 90,000 men on the field and the Confederates had only about 20,000. Everyone knew the end of the war was near. Sherman was criticized for not attacking harder on the third day of fighting, to completely smash the army opposing him, but Sherman didn’t want further bloodshed.

The Civil War tactic of lining men up shoulder-to-shoulder and blasting away from just a few hundred feet was butchery. The reenactment gave me a good feel for that — and it’s hard for me to watch it even when the men are shooting just gunpowder without projectiles.

In the first week of June, 2009, I went back to Boston with my sons for my 20th college reunion. The studying I did inside and outside the classroom really sharpened my love of history (I didn’t go to college planning to major in history — REALLY! But taking a few classes really sold me on it). I made sure that the bricks of Harvard Square weren’t the only bricks we hiked across . . .

Right after our flight landed, we hiked around downtown Boston. First stop: the Battle of Bunker Hill! Except that the monument stands on Breed’s Hill, which was the taller hill and better to defend. The Redcoats didn’t take Breed’s Hill until their third charge and paid a heavy price for this high ground. Which is now surrounded by very fancy townhomes. Samuel the Teenager bravely vowed to climb the 300 steps of the monument with his backpack on; I forebade it — and bravely volunteered to guard their backs at the bottom as they both went. They made it! And I didn’t!!!

Then we hiked down Breed’s Hill to the dock where the USS Constitution is being refurbished. Samuel instantly renamed “Old Ironsides” to be “Old Tarp Covering.”I learned a lot of things on our tour of the ship (which is still commissioned in the US Navy – it could go to war if we needed it!). Its guns recoil at 30 mph when fired. That’s a lot of recoil. So even when the captain calls for a “broadside,” they would fire only half the guns at once — firing all of them would tip the ship!

The USS Constitution is docked at what was the Charlestown Navy Yard until it closed in the early 1970s. We saw the drydocks created to clean up sailing ships but used all the way into the Cold War. I loved seeing the old cranes and equipment left at the dock. AND seeing what happens to history on waterfront property: the molding drydocks sit beneath old, smallish workshops of beautifully-worn brick, and both shipyard relics rest in the shadow of a giant new brick and glass condo!!!

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Last week I got to spend time in Louisville, KY, then lead Ohio students on tours of Jamestown and finish with a trip to talk to teachers in Lynchburg, VA. That’s a lot of mileage for history education!

My trip to Louisville, KY, began with cheese grits and “spiced berry pie” at the painted eatery shown above: Lynn’s Paradise Cafe, a beautiful burst of quirky local color. It was like eating in the middle of Mardi Gras! My host, Malana Salyer from the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, was right on with this breakfast choice!

I did two things for the McConnell Center in Louisville: speak directly to teachers in their outreach program (I was the wrapup to a year of study about the Civil War, so we brainstormed some cartoons and tried to analyze what they had learned) and visit several of those teachers’ schools to talk to students. I do a lot of these Author’s Purpose talks in the spring; what makes each one interesting to me is the character of each different school building and the ideas from the different students. In Louisville I did three sessions at the Brown School, a beautiful downtown school that teaches all grades, K-12! It was fascinating to see all the ages mixing when the day ended. (The auditorium also had some beautiful 1950s tile walls that must have been hand-glued because there were four different creme colors of tile in no noticeable pattern; so I linked that tile to one of my cartoons about Roman mosaic art!)

After two days in Louisville, I flew back to Williamsburg for a 12-hour day of guiding three charter buses of middle schoolers through Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg. Then Thursday was six hours of driving so I could talk to teachers in Lynchburg, VA, about how to use comix in the classroom. Once I get my audience to agree on the terms of comix, I test those terms. I had fun showing the Lynchburg teachers a page from a beautiful comic called “Meridian,” about a girl with powers. No word balloons on the page I show, but a lot of cursive writing in boxes — just like the writing in journals that many teachers have their fourth- and fifth-graders do!

The teacher training was at Amazement Square, a fantastic children’s museum right on the James River at the edge of Lynchburg’s downtown. For the past four years I have drawn an educational comic strip for the museum — one created to fill the gap after Chester the Crab ended as a newspaper feature! (The Lynchburg News & Advance was the first paper beyond the Daily Press to run the Chester comic, and when those 5 years of stories ended, they wanted to keep providing material for their younger readers; the newspaper approached the museum, and the museum called me) The strip features bug characters that were designed before I came along. It’s been fun to bring personality to beautiful characters that had been used in limited ways before I got ahold of them. The Lynchburg teachers seemed psyched for Year Five of The Adventures of Scorpy Bug. You can see examples of Scorpy’s stories at: www.amazementsquare.com/scorpy/

Last week I traveled to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, VA, with my sons’ Boy Scout troop and squeezed in a book signing and some research for a World War I comic I plan to work on later this year. You can see by my left hand that I did bring the crab hat — the staff at the gift shop absolutely insisted that I wear it during the signing, but they couldn’t make me wear it through the museum!

The Marine Corps began as soldiers stationed on sailing warships, ready to go ashore to keep peace or ready to provide extra firepower in ship-to-ship fighting. The museum is full of cool figures that show the different eras of the Corps — You wouldn’t think statues could still interest us in our video-saturated digital WWW.com world. But getting up close to real equipment and VERY realistic figures does shoot a charge down your spine! There are some surprises for visitors as they round certain corners . . .

It helps that some galleries put you in the action itself. A room about the Korean War is dark and cold. A Vietnam War gallery puts you on a hilltop at the Khe Sanh base in some high heat, and you get there by going though a rattling, noisy helicopter hatch. If you look closely you can see a rat figure scurrying around. Better than a video game? Close. I loved getting photos at close and unusual angles, which will help in future drawings. In the main atrium of the National Museum of the Marine Corps there is a World War I fighter hung from the ceiling, and I relished the chance to get an image from an angle I wouldn’t normally find in a magazine or website.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps is not all blood n’ guts (tho there is plenty of that). There’s a theater you can sit in to watch World War II-era newsreels and cartoons.  The gallery that introduces the World War II storyline shows two women reacting to news of Pearl Harbor — there’s even a broken teacup on the floor. (But it does feel odd that the narrative here includes video playing on the wallpaper; it gives the impression of television when we’re looking at an era when almost everyone got their news from the radio, as the women are doing.)

This museum debuted in late 2006 as part of a wave of new brick-and-mortar galleries trying to immerse visitors in video and other sensations to bring history stories alive. It succeeds!

The days after Barack Obama was elected to the presidency were an interesting time to hang out with urban students in Roanoke, Virginia. I had to design an Obama caricature in a hurry!!! Made me wistful for my political cartooning days . . .

But it felt good to add that breath of fresh air. Drawing Frederick Douglass endorsing Obama was just plain FUN (the contrast in their hair was the best!). I do tweak my presentation over the years — I’ve added new words, new ideas and new twists to the standard drawings I do in my “chalk talks.” But it’s all built on a simple idea that has been around since vaudeville days: the magic that appears as a guy brainstorms ideas with an audience and brings those ideas to form.

Plus the silly hat . . .

During my talk at Fairview Elementary in Roanoke, the 200 students brought pencils and paper to the cafeteria. I think it’s cool that they drew as I drew and we brainstormed together. I got some great renditions of Chester at the end of my talk. I don’t ask them to draw him, but Chester has proven the test of time to be an appealing and simply-formed character — like Snoopy or Mickey Mouse. I love seeing the variations that kids come up with!

On a recent Friday night between two long days at a homeschool convention in Harrisburg, PA, I went looking for fun on the capital city’s designated fun island in the middle of the Susquehanna River. I found a lot of History! And one awesome punchline. . .

This cool Friday dusk would have felt completely different if the AA Harrisburg Senators had been playing a home game instead of away. I was sad to occupy the island with a few joggers and the ghosts of players in the Negro Leagues of baseball. One team there was called the Harrisburg Colored Giants. The Giants played 1906-1908, but on a deserted City Island it was hard to judge which team was more a part of faded history, the Giants or the Central Penn Piranha (a nearby sign proclaimed them “The Winningest Team in Minor League Football History!”)

The joggers crossed a pedestrian-only bridge from the island to downtown Harrisburg. The sign proclaims it “The Oldest Metal Span Bridge in the U.S. 1888.” I have no idea what engineering made this bridge possible or special, but I love finding that detail of History. That sort of claim doesn’t often show up on Google — you’ve got to walk a place to find that.

Before air conditioners, this island was where city folks came to cool off in July and August. A cement beach sits on the north end of City Island. They still use the bathhouse built for the beach in the 1920s! The peeling paint added to the spooky atmosphere as the sun set and the security guard looked happy to be leaving his own hut on the fun island.

The city’s website says the island’s “RiverSide Village Park features seven rustic concession stands offering roast beef and fish sandwiches, crab cakes, sausages, hamburgers & hotdogs to french fries, lemonade, & ice cream.” I loved the idea of wrapping all this in a historical tone – I just wished I could have gotten some eats from the convincing replica of the John Harris Trading Post, 1705-1785.

. . . and then I walked behind the trading post! And saw a different kind of post!!! This great log cabin replica got carted in on a mobile home trailer and parked there 20 years ago, and they still haven’t bothered to cover up the trailer hitch!! Or maybe that’s just the place where the ashes from the chimney come out??? The view you don’t get on the postcard.