[Artemisia] OH the YEARS.

Thu Oct 23 13:34:50 CDT 2003

In 1983, in Santa Barbara, the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I got a ride home several afternoons in a row from a kid who knew (and didn't get along with) my older brother. It was on the back of a fairly loud motorcycle, so there were not many opportunities for conversation while in transit. So, each afternoon, he and I would stand where he dropped me off and chat. He told me of this really cool group he was in, based on the history of the medieval ages. He told me about the weekly meetings at a local guys house. I never had the opportunity to go. Well, spring break of my freshman year (1984) I was hanging out with other friends of mine (all seniors, what can I say, I grew up in adult world) and I tagged along to something that they were going to. It turned out to be a local meeting of this group that my motorcycle friend was telling me about. 

Well, the group was the recently demoted Shire of Isles. It had been one of the founding Baronies of the Kingdom of Caid. There were still hurt feelings and for the groups very survival, they chose to play in a very reclusive enviroment. I attended weekly populace meetings and weekly fighters practices, as well as the few local events they held. I knew there was a group in Ventura, twenty minutes to the South, because we'd go to each others events. I played at this level for four years, slowly building up and realizing that there was one hell of a group in So California when I attended by first really big court event in the beginning of 1988. Caidian 12th Night. It was held at a very large Catholic Cathedral in Pasedena and the feast was quite possibly the most beautiful man-made thing I had ever seen. Maybe 500 people in what can only subtlely be described as a 'late period' Kingdom. Picture a feast hall as long as the one at Hogewarts, but with eight rows of tables, not four. 

A few months later, I moved to Lompoc and Vandenburg AFB, the Seneschal of Isles gave me the contact infomation for the Seneschal of Carreg Wen, along with a letter of introduction. A few weeks later, I attended my first ever war. May Potrero in the far southern reaches of Caid. There I was told that Potrero is actually just a war practice for a bigger event called Estrella. I returned from Potrero and, in addition to taking the first officers positions I ever held, I started my prep for Estrella. After Estrella came the West/Caid War and in 1989 I moved into downtown Caid (so called because the LA basin houses three Baronies whos borders touch) and began to learn armour making from Earl Brion Thornbird, and I never looked back. 

Though I have moved around quite a bit in my years, the SCA has always been a thread of commonality in my life. Making friends and aquaintences all over this globe. I even lived in the West for a time. Not the West as you might think of it, but the part of the Kingdom of the West in what is mundanely known as Japan, though there were no event during the time that I was there, when I was not too ill to attend. My first fighters authorization card was from the West, though I officially lived in Caid when it was signed. 

*sigh*

I guess I'm not officially at 20 years, yet. I'm only at 19 1/2. April 2004 will see my 20th anniversary participating in the SCA. Two weeks past saw me attending the Great Western War in Caid. The first person I ran across that I knew (I left Caid for Artemisia in 1994, many faces have changed) was none other than my motorcycle friend who first told me of the SCA, now he's known as Master Gareth Nikodemos Somerset. But, to me he'll always be the geeky kid in high school who hated my brother and would scare away the really obnoxious missionaries (no, not Mormons, they don't physically force their way inside) by answering the door in brown robes and yelling 'Practicing Druid, stay off the lawn!" and slamming the door. *giggle* Of course, he's also the guy who comforted a really upset young lady after two of her closest friends (guys from back in elementary school) had a real fight and drew a frightening amount of blood from each other before the cops broke up the fight and everyone
 there scattered. I had to walk home right past his house and he was a real gentleman explaining 'how this could happen with friends' to me. What a guy, even in high school, the SCA was helping further the causes of the Chivalric Values.

Walking down memory lane in order to write this has really brought back a warm set of memories. Thank you for asking.

Isabeau

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