Sunday, October 10, 2010

History Fest

So as previously noted, the main reason I did not end up doing the reading marathon is that I went to History Fest (link to their website in previous post; it gives a pretty good idea of what the thing was like). The farm on which it takes place is owned by a very charming older fellow of Irish descent, who does sleight-of-hand tricks and speaks with the closest thing to an Irish brogue one can get while still actually being American.

After five of us directed parking for a couple of hours, we were released to wander about at will because traffic was arriving at a rate of maybe one car every ten minutes, something that would maybe take one of us to direct but would not take five.

So I found the guy playing Abraham Lincoln, and we discussed states' rights and whether he had strengthened or weakened the federal government and state governments during his presidency; then I noticed his campaign button (which he was rather impressed with--it comes from having an antique dealer for a mother) and was told all about it, which because I have an antique dealer for a mother I was rather interested in.

After that, wandered through the Wild West part of things, past a rather skilled cowboy yodeler, walked on stilts for a bit, tried on medieval plate armor, and wandered into the encampment labeled "Scotland, 17th Century." Now, because the Risings did not occur until the 18th Century, and because there were lots of Scottish mercenaries in the Thirty Years War, I had already guessed that TYW was what these Scotsmen would be. I was totally right.

Talked to the head of the mercenary encampment for quite a while, at first about Thirty Years War stuff and things that were actually on-topic, but then digressing into things that were not quite so on-topic (but were equally rare for two people in the same place to both know about--for example, see Will Kemp). I concluded by telling the guy about the time Zeke and I did such convincing Scottish accents that we made a British lady think we were Scottish.

THEN went over to the fighting ring, to see the medieval reenactors (from the Society for Creative Anachronism) fight each other, medieval-style. They made their weapons to have the weight and heft and as much of the look of actual medieval weapons as possible, while trying to limit the actual death that occurred during their re-enactment. After the battle I talked to the guy who I believe is the head of the local chapter. I was invited to join them for medieval combat, which they apparently engage in once a week in town here.

Then we met up with the others of our group, who had not had the chance to wander around, and Tarja and I wandered and, among other things, goaded each other into walking on stilts and crawling through the troll tunnel, the latter of which was a more claustrophobic experience than I usually engage in but wasn't bad. Then it was time to go, and I felt properly nerdy for a day's work.

3 comments:

Maggie said...

Sigh... a proper excuse.

Ethan said...

Yeah. Sorry 'bout that. I'll try to come up with a flimsier one next time.

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