A long, meandering journey down memory lane

[ascelyn]

(Reposted here at Eadric's request.  Must obey....)

I first heard about the SCA as a junior or senior in high school.  That would be roughly around 2003, five years ago.  Because of that, this will be long and drawn-out, but mostly because I’ve been to enough events to make it long and not enough to fully compress them like those who have been

Comments

[spikywheel]

We all started somewhere.

I was a "gypsy" with a silk poet shirt and a neon multi-colored scarf skirt and had the name "Natasha" at my first event. My hair was up in a blue scarf. I ate with my fingers on a wood trench I got at the thrift store. I think I've burned all the negatives.

I had the Time Of My Life.

Thanks for sharing :)

[thatpotteryguy]

My first event, I wore a too-short monk's robe over street clothes, courtesy of the Gold Key box. At that event, I bought a copy of The Known World Handbook, and that night my girlfriend and I sewed my first garb, a black t-tunic that I still have somewhere

[ascelyn]

Luckily, I already knew a couple of SCA guys--Adam and Baron Llewellyn, specifically. If I hadn't, I probably never would have come back, and I'd be missing out on more than I care to think about.

I haven't seen the idiot since. Hopefully he's crawled back into his cave and rotted by now.

The real question is, where do all those plastic-bottomed tankards come from? Someone has to buy them outside the SCA, or one out of every two newbies wouldn't find them in Goodwill and bring them to their first event. Who else would want to use the things?

[thatpotteryguy]

They were all made in the fall of 1978, to commemorate something noone remembers. They eventually were all sent to Steak'n'Ale's, where primitive SCAdians swiped them and, eventiually, donated them to the Great Feast Gear Recycler (Goodwill, St. Vincent DePaul, or Salvation Army, depending).

[chargirlgenius]

I got one for a debate trophy my junior year in high school. So I had one BEFORE I started in the SCA. :-D

[stitchwhich]

I went to my first event thinking I was going to a Pagan celebration. After all, it was called "Samhain", so it had to be pagan, right? But the person who told me about it said everyone dressed up in medieval clothes so she knew I'd love it

[eithni]

Yipes! I went to my first event in a dress rescued from the High school theatre department. I *knew* the zippers were wrong, so I took those out and replaced them with lacing. That was an "improvement" but didn't really save the too-short, pink sheer attached chemise 1960's take on Italian Ren. I *loved* that dress! Ten minutes in the door of the event I knew how awful it was, though, and never wore it again (well, not to a "real event," at least). That's not to say I never had Garb Atrocities after that, but like you I got sucked into the "must do better" mentality right from the start. But even in that awful dress, I had the time of my life and now in wool and linen I have continued to do so for the last dozen years. May your time be as enjoyable!

[jljonsn]

Inspiring.