I saw an advertisement for the Arizona Renaissance Festival today and thought to myself, are they still doing that? I had a reason for wondering beyond the obvious weird aspects of Renaissance festivals in general.
Have you ever poured your heart and soul into an activity only to have some jackass like me say, "Never heard of it" or "Oh, that"? On the rare occasions that I get deeply involved in something I assume that everyone else knows all about it, because my causes are all worthwhile . Or were, since I given up causes.
For a number of years I was involved in long distance bicycling. Each October our local bike club would sponsor a trip across Arizona, north to south, a distance of about 550 miles. If you are among those who believe that because much of Arizona desert, that it is also flat, you are quite mistaken.
Page Arizona at the top of the state is at about 4300 ft above seal level. the Grand Canyon is 7900, Flagstaff is 7000, Phoenix 1100, Tucson 2600 and Nogales, at the Mexico border is 3900. that's a lot of ups and downs. When I told non-cyclists about the ride, their first reaction was, "never heard of it", followed by, "Why would you want to do that?" Good question.
So today when I saw the ad for the Arizona Renaissance Festival, it was the first time I have thought about it in years, and yet some people, a lot of people, put all their time and all their energy into the stupid thing.
I actually went to the Renaissance Festival once. I was volunteering at a school near Casa Sneed and had volunteered to drive a couple of kids to the event, as part of a class outing for the two third-grades. When I arrived at school that morning I found out that one teacher was sick and since I had a substitute teacher credential, I was nominated to be her replacement. Never mind that I didn't know the name of a single kid in that class and never mind that the kids were being driven the 100 miles each way to the festival in privates cars, I was in charge. This was seriously reckless at a couple of levels.
The other teacher acrually said, "Gee you get to go to the festival and make $80 too. In retrosect, if they had nailed my feet to the floor and stolen my wallet, I would have been better off.
The teachers had some goofy idea that the kids would learn valuable stuff by attending this thing. What they learned is that the giant turkey leg seems to have been very popular with medieval peoples but not much else. I think that the turkey leg is bogus history anyway.
Visions of catastrophic lawsuits danced in my head as we drove to the event. Since I didn't know any of the kids I was supposedly responsible for, I had no way to tell if they were all accounted for. I took attendance before we left but after we arrived they took off to every corner of the festival, with instructions to meet their driver at a specific time. The whole plan was complicated by the presence of a bazillion kids from other schools.
We got back to the school at 5 pm and there were lots of moms and dads waiting. I stayed until all the kids were gone, hoping that everyone was accounted for. Just when I thought I was home free, a father showed up asking for his daughter. I told him I was a substitute and I didn't know which one was his daughter. This was not the news he was looking for and he told me that I was irresponsible. It was a compelling accusation. I was irresponsible for going along with this loopy idea.
Fortunately for me one of the office workers saw this guy and told him that his ex-wife had picked up the little girl. This diverted his wrath from me to her and he huffed off. The office lady told me that this character and the ex had this mix up all the time and that I shouldn't take it personally.
So, even though it isa really big deal to a lot of folks who pour their all into it, when it comes to the Renaissance Festival, I'm not that crazy about it.
Merle.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky
Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor
2 comments:
This has nothing to do with the Efing Renaissance Festival, but I am reminded something that happened when I was in high school and was on the staff of "The Talon," the school's newspaper (our Eagle was domesticated and did not eat paragliders, top female or otherwise). My teacher announced with great pride and satisfaction that Lennie Frimson, daughter of a local sports newspaper columnist, was joining the paper.
"Who's your father?" I asked Lennie.
"Dorky Frimson," replied Lennie.
"Never heard of him," I said.
Someone shoot me.
I confess I enjoy the Rennaisance Faire and its Christmastime version, The Dickens Faire. It's a character weakness, but I can't help it.
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