Friday, April 16, 2004
The Rise and Fall of Crispinus Spellar, Part One
Or, How I Learned to Love and Then Hate The Society for Creative Anachronism
Author's Note: The following account tells the tale of a two-year period of my life -- a period of time that contained many changes and challenges for me. I'm going to gloss over a few details, including names of people, places, companies and organizations, because I quite frankly expect this story to raise the hackles of a few people and I'd rather not provoke them any more than necessary.
The Middle Ages had fascinated me since I was a child. Brave kings, chivalrous knights, tales of legend and, of course, fantasy and legendary literature all played huge roles in my life and still continue to do so. I suppose if you were to go back to the root of my interest in The Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization that can best be summed up by its own tag line of re-creating the Middle Ages the way they should have been, you would end up talking about the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game and then moving into my very short fascination with live-action fantasy roleplaying games (one NERO training event as a teenager and I'd had enough of that crap).
However, my tale really begins a few years ago. I had left a job that I had grown to despise to strike out on my own as a freelance writer. In addition to that, I had also been hanging out in a Pickering establishment called King Richard's Pub four to five nights a week with guys I knew in high school. Rawl, Brad (I wasn't really friends with Brad in high school -- I had met him, but mostly knew him by reputation) and I had become regulars at the pub. You know what I'm talking about. We were the types that were known by name by all of the wait staff, and we'd often have our beers served to us upon entering the pub.
At the time, I had also been going with my girlfriend at the time for a couple of years. This was still quite some time before we had our problems and ended our relationship, so we were more-or-less happy. Anyway, Rawl and Kim basically made up all of my evenings and weekends, and all of that came to a halt in the summer right before I joined the SCA. Rawl quit a job that he hated and moved to Taiwan to teach English for a year, while Kim headed out to the west end of the city to go to university.
With Rawl completely gone and Kim gone five days of the week (with us seeing each other only on weekends) and yours truly working for himself and having plenty of spare time, I had to find additional ways to amuse myself. It was through the music of a SCAdian that I discovered The Society for Creative Anachronism, and that's how I hooked up with the Scarborough/Pickering SCA group (called a canton). I emailed the seneschal (kind of the president of a canton) and another person in the group, and I was pretty soon attending regular weekly meetings (as I recall, they were on Mondays, but I would have to verify that).
What I found upon arriving at my first meeting was a friendly but small group of people that had known each other for quite some time. However, they were all eager to accept me into the group and get me started on learning the customs of the SCA. Of course, at the time, my main interest was in research and just generally learning about the Middle Ages and not necessarily in the day-long or weekend-long events SCA groups are always holding (SCA events are like giant costume parties).
After each meeting, several group members would always migrate to the Route 66 restaurant/bar in Scarborough, and we'd hang out there for hours mostly drinking beer and talking.
So that's how I spent much of the next several months -- going to meetings and then to the bar afterwards, making friends in the SCA, going to events and dragging other friends of mine out to see what went on. When you first join the SCA, it's intoxicating. Events are quite immersive, and there's always something going on. It's easy to get hooked, and the SCA can, will and does end up monopolizing your time.
Author's Note: The following account tells the tale of a two-year period of my life -- a period of time that contained many changes and challenges for me. I'm going to gloss over a few details, including names of people, places, companies and organizations, because I quite frankly expect this story to raise the hackles of a few people and I'd rather not provoke them any more than necessary.
The Middle Ages had fascinated me since I was a child. Brave kings, chivalrous knights, tales of legend and, of course, fantasy and legendary literature all played huge roles in my life and still continue to do so. I suppose if you were to go back to the root of my interest in The Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization that can best be summed up by its own tag line of re-creating the Middle Ages the way they should have been, you would end up talking about the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game and then moving into my very short fascination with live-action fantasy roleplaying games (one NERO training event as a teenager and I'd had enough of that crap).
However, my tale really begins a few years ago. I had left a job that I had grown to despise to strike out on my own as a freelance writer. In addition to that, I had also been hanging out in a Pickering establishment called King Richard's Pub four to five nights a week with guys I knew in high school. Rawl, Brad (I wasn't really friends with Brad in high school -- I had met him, but mostly knew him by reputation) and I had become regulars at the pub. You know what I'm talking about. We were the types that were known by name by all of the wait staff, and we'd often have our beers served to us upon entering the pub.
At the time, I had also been going with my girlfriend at the time for a couple of years. This was still quite some time before we had our problems and ended our relationship, so we were more-or-less happy. Anyway, Rawl and Kim basically made up all of my evenings and weekends, and all of that came to a halt in the summer right before I joined the SCA. Rawl quit a job that he hated and moved to Taiwan to teach English for a year, while Kim headed out to the west end of the city to go to university.
With Rawl completely gone and Kim gone five days of the week (with us seeing each other only on weekends) and yours truly working for himself and having plenty of spare time, I had to find additional ways to amuse myself. It was through the music of a SCAdian that I discovered The Society for Creative Anachronism, and that's how I hooked up with the Scarborough/Pickering SCA group (called a canton). I emailed the seneschal (kind of the president of a canton) and another person in the group, and I was pretty soon attending regular weekly meetings (as I recall, they were on Mondays, but I would have to verify that).
What I found upon arriving at my first meeting was a friendly but small group of people that had known each other for quite some time. However, they were all eager to accept me into the group and get me started on learning the customs of the SCA. Of course, at the time, my main interest was in research and just generally learning about the Middle Ages and not necessarily in the day-long or weekend-long events SCA groups are always holding (SCA events are like giant costume parties).
After each meeting, several group members would always migrate to the Route 66 restaurant/bar in Scarborough, and we'd hang out there for hours mostly drinking beer and talking.
So that's how I spent much of the next several months -- going to meetings and then to the bar afterwards, making friends in the SCA, going to events and dragging other friends of mine out to see what went on. When you first join the SCA, it's intoxicating. Events are quite immersive, and there's always something going on. It's easy to get hooked, and the SCA can, will and does end up monopolizing your time.
// posted by Chris @ 6:43 PM 
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