[Artemisia] post on the chirurgeons list about Artemisia

[Sue Clemenger]

Happy April Fools' Day to you, too, Therasia!
--maire

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cat" <no1home at onewest.net>
To: <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 5:04 PM
Subject: [Artemisia] post on the chirurgeons list about Artemisia


> The following is a post originally intended for the Kingdom
> Chirurgeon list that was accidentally misposted to the SCA-
> chirurgeons list.  I have forwarded it to this list since it
> mentioned alleged events in our beloved kingdom.  FYI, this missive
> appears to be addressed to Dame Eleanor Isabeau de Coeur/Dr.
> Elisabeth ("Beth") Carlock, the Society Corporate Chirurgeon.
> ttfn
> Therasia
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Subject: 'yo, Eleanor, here's an FYI on the "disaster" at the event
> in Idaho
> From: "helm_clark" <cat at rocks4brains.com>
> Date: Sat Apr 1, 2006  2:45 pm
>
> Eleanor,
>
> I am not sending you this brief account of the incidences from this
> last weekend in any  official capacity but only as an eyewitness and
> participant to most of the events at the  Spring Has Sprung Small-
> Unit Mini War College hosted by the "Shire of Grand  Penwick" (they
> are trying to change their name; they are officially the suspended/
> soon-to- be-in-abeyance Shire of Lunecorn Hafn, which comprises the
> Dry Creek and Desert Valleys  in southern Idaho and the towns of
> Snowberg, Utah and Torrent Falls, ID).  Because of their  suspended
> status, the barony immediately to the west (only ~200 miles as the
> crow flies  but 324 mi by road because of the mountains) "officially"
> hosted the event for newsletter  and insurance purposes.
>
> The radio news report by the aspiring journalism major at City of
> Rocks State University  was highly inaccurate, and though it was only
> broadcast on the university's radio station, it  was then picked up
> by the city newspapers down in Salt Lake and subsequently by the UPI
> syndicate.  Despite the subsequent sensational coverage in the news
> media, no one  drowned, only two cars were wrecked, the incident with
> the epi-pen did not happen as  reported and the so-called "major
> coronary" was hugely exaggerated.
>
> To understand what happened, it helps to know a bit about how the
> weather and  topography interact here.  The Dry Creek and Desert
> Valleys are "Basin and Range" valleys,  long and thin and bordered by
> north-south trending mountain ranges which are  terminated by the
> Snake River Plain on the north and the depression filled by the Great
> Salt  Lake to the south.  Winter and Spring storm systems tend to
> travel northeastward off the  Pacific, through the break in the
> California Coastal Ranges, over the Sierras, up the  Humboldt River
> Valley, and then into the Basin and Range Mountains of southern
> Idaho  and northern Utah.  Due to the dew point effect when clouds
> are blown against and then  over the steep mountain ranges in their
> way, it is not uncommon to see thunderstorms  dumping snow at
> altitude on the west-facing flank of a mountain range while it is
> sunny  and 60 degrees on the valley floor.
>
> The event site was in Serpentinite Canyon in the Dismal Gulch Range,
> at the Green Dragon  Basalt Flow Campground run by the National
> Forest Service.  The autocrats, both college  students, "never found
> the time during midterms" to reserve the campground, with the
> results that there was no insurance rider obtained for the event for
> the forest service folks.   In addition, if the autocrats had
> bothered to visit the forest service offices, they would  have
> discovered before the event happened that the water system had been
> drained and  shut down for the winter.  Since Serpentinite Canyon can
> get snow as late as June, the  water was not yet reconnected, the
> privies were not unlocked and the loop road around  the campground
> was not plowed.
>
> The Green Dragon Basalt Flow Campground is aptly named because of the
> conspicuous  basalt flow that erupted sometime in the distant past
> along the block fault that runs along  the base of the Dismal Gulch
> Range.  This fault is thought to connect up with the southern  end of
> the Great Rift of Idaho which terminates 150 miles to the north at
> Craters of the  Noom National Momument.  Unlike other basalt flows in
> Idaho, including the more famous  Green Dragon Flow at Craters of the
> Moom, the Green Dragon Flow in Serpentinite Canyon  hosts a lava tube
> with "skylights" in its roof.  It also contains very unusual clear
> xenoliths  of some exotic mineral whose name I can't remember at the
> moment.  This is important,  you see, because the Oki-Doki Minodoka
> Mineral Club had arrived at the campground  before any SCA members
> did for their first mineral collecting outing of the year.
>
> The presence of the rock hounds at the campground is germane for
> several reasons.  First,  they had arrived in force with seven big
> Class A RVs.  One of their members showed up  with 4x4 with a small
> snowplow attached and had cleared off about half of the loop road.
> This was quite helpful since it made most of the campsites accessible
> so there was enough  room for both the rock hounds and the 27 SCA
> members who showed up for the event.   All of the SCA members present
> were either from the Grand Penwick war unit (as they  current insist
> on being called) or from the war unit of the shire immediately to the
> north.   The weekend chosen was not really optimal, but it was the
> only date available on the  colander between Coronation, Crown
> Tourney, the Kingdom A&S  Championship  competition, the Great Brine
> Shrimp Defender Tourney (I'm not making these names up,  Beth, go
> look at our calender!) and the Miracle of St. Alan and the Peeps
> Feast (see http:// www.rocks4brains.com/~cat/peeps.html).
>
> While the rock hounds were friendly and hospitable, it was quickly
> apparent to everyone  that the bathrooms on the RVs, initially
> offered to the first SCA folks to show up, would  not be good enough
> to accommodate all of the SCA people at the event.  This was quickly
> solved by one of the autocrats who noticed that the screening on the
> side of the  bathrooms could be easily removed - which he
> subsequently did.  Climbing into the  bathroom, he opened the doors
> from the inside, thus providing a mens' and womens'  toilets for the
> event (much to the relief of the rock hounds).  To keep the doors
> from  locking behind someone using the campground bathrooms, the
> autocrats ducktaped the  spring-loaded latch gizmos flush against the
> side of the door edges (that was badly  expressed, Beth, wasn't it?
> But I'm sure you get my drift.  I'm also a little shakey still,
> having just gotten home after being released from the Coffin Co. Jail).
>
> After the three peers (including myself) present at the event
> finished telling the two well- meaning but somewhat clueless
> autocrats a thing or two, they went off to pick up enough  toilet
> paper, hand cleaner gel, paper towels and trash bags for the event.
> After that,  Friday night turned into a relatively quiet and fun
> evening, even though camping was a tad  on the cold side, spent
> singing old camp fire songs and some silly kiddy songs too ("Great
> green globs of…") and roasting marshmellow peeps over the campfire
> (picked-up cheap  during the post-Easter candy sales the week before)
> with the folks from the rock club.  We  made a deal with the rock
> hounds: they wouldn't turn on their TVs (except for the news  and
> weather report) and none of our younger members who brought doombecs
> would play  them.  It was the most peaceful sleep I've ever had at an
> event.
>
> Saturday dawned cold and clear.  The fifteen fighters present got
> into armour and we went  trudging up into the forested slopes of
> lodge pole pine, through slushy snow and mud and  had ourselves a
> grand old time - right up until Sir Fish slipped and broke his
> ankle.  You  will be happy to know that since my CPR certs are
> lapsed, I did go through the formality of  making it clear I was not
> acting as a chirurgeon, only as a layperson first-aider - which
> prompted Sir Fish to cuss me out to quit gabbering and splint "the #@$
> %&! thing" before  he froze his butt off in the slush.
>
> We got Sir Fish back down to the campground where we got most of his
> plate off him,  wrapped him up warmly and put him in the back seal of
> his car, whereupon his wife,  Mistress Delorosa, embarked on the hour
> and half long drive to the hospital in  Trembleton, Utah.  We figured
> that it was closer than the two hour drive to the Regional  Medical
> Center in Pocapotato or the small hospital in Torrent Falls.  By the
> time we saw Sir  Fish off, we moved the fighting to some scenarios
> inside the lave tube, which considering  that is was now raining,
> meant that we could fight where it was mostly dry.  Besides, since
> the forested slopes were a bit higher than the campground, it was now
> snowing where we  had fought during the morning.
>
> The rest of the day and the subsequent evening passed uneventfully
> except that a weather  system blew in.  As the clouds rolled over the
> range and as the temperature dropped when  the sun went down, it
> started to snow in earnest.  The rock hounders were paragons of  good
> old fashioned rural western hospitality and took all of us in to
> sleep on the floors  and couches of their RVs.  In the morning, the
> guy with the snow plow got to work on  clearing the road and while we
> all got to work to packing up, the rock hounds took off for  warmer
> climes.  The sun had come back out and a lot of the snow started to
> melt.  By  noon, it was getting pretty wet - a situation made worse
> by intermittent snow showers and  a rising freezing fog (not uncommon
> in these parts).  Just how slippery was demonstrated  by Master Buggo
> whose old 260Z slid off the road and wrapped itself around a limber
> pine.  Both the car and tree were totaled but Master Buggo escaped
> with a few bruises and  a pair of broken glasses, thanks to his
> homebuilt airbag contraption - but what else would  you expect from
> the man who built a complete Cornish Stannary in his back yard?
>
> Lord Gryph managed to slide his 4x4 down the road to drive to the
> nearest town, Meadow Vole, Idaho, fifteen miles away to get help
> while the rest of us applied ourselves to our shovels to clear off as
> much ice and slush as we could.  It was at this time that Lady
> Cortmey got her hoop skirt stuck in the bathroom and could not get
> out of either the door  or her skirt without help.  The problem was
> that there wasn't really room in the bathroom  for more than Cortmey
> and her skirt.  This was complicated by the fact that the wet
> ducktape finally gave up the ghost and chose Cortmey's visit to the
> bath room to fall off the taped latch - thus preventing our opening
> the door from the outside.  Our seneschal,  Carlos El Esperanzo,
> realized that the roof was only loosely nailed down to the walls of
> the  bathroom building.  It took eight of us but we quickly took the
> roof off and Duchess Elie,  being a small and lithe woman, climbed in
> to free up Cortmey's hoops.  (Note I will say  nothing about the fact
> that Cortmey decided to wear garb with a hoop skirt while packing
> and trying to flirt with the Crown Prince…)  This all would have been
> funny if there had not  been a wasps' nest in the corner along the
> roof of the bathroom that Her Grace jostled  while climbing into the
> bathroom.  This dislodged one sleepy sluggish wasp who decided  to
> land on Her Grace and sting her.  Of course, it is only to be
> expected that Her Grace was  the only one of us allergic to stinging
> insects AND that she had left her epi kit at home.   This left Her
> Grace falling onto Cortmey's lap in the now-roofless bathroom.  Thank
> God  she did not hit her head!
>
> As I have mentioned before, my NOLS Wilderness first aid cert allows
> me to carry and use  an epi-pen in wilderness situations where EMS
> can't possibly arrive within an hour.  I got  the pen out of my kit,
> managed to stuff myself into the bathroom with Cortmey and Elie  and
> applied the pen, which had the desired effect of relieving the
> respiratory distress the Elie had begun to experience.  I also
> decided that enough was enough and banished all the  boys away from
> the bathroom so I could open the door, get Elie out of there and free
> up  Cortmey (despite her protests over the open door).
>
> We were all out of the bathroom when the earthquake hit.  As you may
> or may not know,  the Basin and Range in Utah and southern Idaho can
> throw off the occasional earthquake,  some of which can be quite
> major, like the 7.3 magnitude Mount Borah Quake in Chilly,  Idaho in
> 1983.  Sunday morning's quake was a mere 5.4 but still, it gave us
> all a good  scare as dead branches fell out of the trees on our heads
> and part of the lava tube caved  in, taking one of the autocrats'
> tents with it (thankfully, he was off shoveling the road so  we could
> get down the mountain).
>
> We did not know it at the time, but the quake broke the earthen dam
> uphill from the  campground that provided potable water for the
> campground and irrigation water for the  three ranches just
> downhill.  We were back to packing when an officer from the county
> sherrif's office was coming up the road in his 4x4, followed by Lord
> Gryph.  We were very  happy to see him.  I was just then asking him
> to call for transportation to get Elie to the  hospital (she was
> still looking pretty bad though breathing better - it was the first
> time I  ever treated anaphalaxis and I was feeling very out of my
> depth, unlike you real medical  types…).  This was when someone
> screamed and pointed at the wall of water coming down  the valley at us.
>
> Most of the campground is located up slope from the swale that runs
> along the road so  the water passed by all the tents, cars and people
> present.  It did however pick up the  detached wooden roof of the
> bathroom, sent it smashing through the windshield of the  county
> sheriff deputy's 4x4 and then carried both off, depositing the roof
> and SUV remains  several hundred yards downhill.  Needless to say,
> the very-young squeaky-clean deputy was rather put out.  He was not
> at all pleased when Master Buggo jury-rigged a two-way  radio for him
> tuned to the county's police frequency (did I mention that Buggo is a
> scanner junkie?).  When the deputy ascertained that Buggo did not
> have a proper radio license to build, tune and operate two-way
> radios, Buggo told him he knew the kid's dad - which shut the deputy
> up really fast (welcome to rural Utah).  After he had called for
> transport for Elie (who I had wrapped up and put into the back of my
> camper because I was concerned that her color was bad and she still
> had hives all over her despite the epi-pen) he came by to ask some
> questions.
>
> When he discovered that I had used an epi-pen and that I did not hold
> a real cert like his  EMT or better in either Idaho or Utah, he
> arrested me despite the fact that I can use an  epi-pen in exactly
> the circumstances we were in under the doctor-supervised protocol
> set  up for faculty members with the NOLS training in my department
> at the university (because  we run field camp in the Lost River Range
> for geology undergrads every summer, which is even more remote than
> the Green Dragon Flow Campground).  Even Buggo promising to tell the
> kid's father did not dissuade him - and so I spent the night in the
> Coffin County Jail in scenic Snowberg, Utah (altitude 7234 feet, pop.
> 7452).  Because his 4x4 was wreckage down the canyon, the fact that I
> had to drive him and myself into Snowberg didn't help his mood any.
> Because of the heavy and wet morning snow, the phones were out and
> the cell tower in town had toppled over so I couldn't make my one
> legally- mandated phone call
>
> Before I was hauled off for jail, the EMS transport we called for was
> taking too long (all the  LifeFlights were currently busy on a big
> accident on I-15) and since the kid from the  sheriff's department
> wanted to haul me off that instant, Gryph and Buggo got pretty  wound
> up about my being removed from Elie.  So they put her in Gryph's 4x4
> and took off for the hospital in Trembleton.  They managed to meet
> the ambulance half way there and Elie got to the hospital ok, where
> she then spent the night.
>
> I got out of jail when Coffin County's only judge showed up in
> Snowberg.  Apparently Buggo really did call the kid's dad, who Buggo
> really knew.  Apparently Buggo and the kid's dad met each other when
> Buggo was arrested in Salt Lake City at a Vietnam Anti-War
> demonstration when the kid's father was a brand new lawyer in the
> public defender's  office.  That was back when Buggo was a big name
> in the peace movement.  Despite their diverse backgrounds (quaker vs.
> mormon) and opposing views on the war (anti vs. pro), Buggo and his
> lawyer developed a lot of respect for one another and over the years
> became friends.  Buggo also called the president of my university and
> the M.D. who  supervises our epi-pen program for field camp and had
> them call the judge.  So the judge  himself showed up, chewed his
> youngest son the sheriff's deputy out up one side and  down the
> other, had the sheriff himself drop by to apologize, and that's
> really the end of  the story - except for the damn radio broadcast.
> But at least now you have the facts and  can convey then to the BoD,
> the society seneschal and the new SCA President (whose name  eludes
> me at the moment).  I hope this clears up some of the confusion which
> has been abetted by the press.
>
> Yours in service,
>
> Catie/Twcs
> (Affl. Prof. C. M. Clark, Ph.D.,
> Idaho State University,
> 01 April 06) _______________________________________________
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