This last weekend went to prove a point I’ve been telling people for years. It doesn’t matter what the event is like, if you are with friends you’ll have a good time. Four years ago we did Theatiki for the first time, it was impressive and we had a lot of fun. Made some new friends and thought it was a great event. Since then it has rapidly been dying off. Three years ago they uninvited all the food vendors that served meals instead of just ice cream and popcorn. Then they started losing vendors, unfortunately some of the good vendors left and some of the crappy ones stuck behind. They moved the weekend it was one, participants started dropping out and even though it’s a “juried” event (Meaning you have to pass inspection and meet a standard of period correctness set by the event), there are a lot of people that were wearing and displaying things they shouldn’t. IE it was not period correct for the 1750’s that this event was set.

This year the camp was about barren. The military unit camp looked vacant, trader row was about 1/3 of what it was the first year we did it. Thank god for the Buffalo Man or Ktreva and I would have been stuck having to live off of ice cream and popcorn. The rapidness of this even collapsing is surprising. To be honest there has to be some kind of internal power struggle or sabotage going on in order for this rapid of demise. But this even is not dead yet. As my friend Will pointed out, they have a great opportunity right now to turn the event around and bring it back to something great.

Even with all of that going on, we had a great time. Why? Good friends. We camped in our usual spot, our friends Will and Red showed up. Their daughter Sari drove down from college to spend the weekend as well. We should have known we were in for a heap of trouble Friday when after all of us changing into costume, Will and I set down to do some drinking. We started with all the left over beers from my reviews. After finishing ALL of those off, we switched to WillÂ’s beer. We were about a case into it when two of the Rangers showed up. Ray and Sgt. Smiley came down and in typical Brit fashion got both Will and I to volunteer to fight in the battle the next day.

We had some more visitors, drank some a lot more beer and then decided to head up to their camp. Of course we leave our camp armed to the hilt. We’re a little on the “socially lubricated side”, and allegedly making some very strong anti-ranger, anti-Brit and anti-Indian comments. Finally we find the manky Anglish gits and set about to deplete their supplies of alcohol. Okay, at this point things start to get fuzzy. I do know that someone gave me a rum horn at one point and I about drained the thing. There was some worry that I was going to collapse it like a little kid sucking on a juice box. Ktreva got tired and headed back to camp. When it came time for us to head back, poor Red and Sari had to keep us in line. And in my case, use my possibles bag strap as a leash to keep me from wondering into other camps. I laid down in the tent to get some sleep and it started spinning like a top. How do you get the tent to stop spinning if you are already on the ground? I was woken up by the sounds of recycle beer and rum splashing off the back of my teeth. With what great speed I could muster I flung myself out of the tent… two feet and preceded to do something I haven’t done in a long, long time at an event. Vomit from drinking too much.

Saturday morning I felt fine, I was a little foggy headed, but felt fine. Until the womenfolk reminded Will and I that we volunteered to fight in the battle. We both looked at each other and stated, “That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.” After breakfast we did the woods walk battle, burned a bunch of powder and walk through the most spider filled woods I have ever been in. I was coated in head to toe in spider webs. After the battle we kind of looked at each other and decided that was too much like work and were going to desert.

When Ray showed up Saturday night to try to recruit us again for Sunday the first words out of my mouth were, “We aren’t drunk enough to volunteer again!” Saturday night wasn’t as wild and crazy as Friday… mainly because we ran out of beer and Sari wouldn’t make a “B double E, double R, U, N… BEER RUN!”(There ya go Harvey, thanks for the link.) Well she did offer earlier in the night, but we thought we had enough between my growlers and Will’s stash. We were wrong. And at 11:00 PM she didn’t feel like driving into town. Not that I blame her.

The Buffalo Man, his wife and assistant came down to join us around our fire Friday night. Stories were told, some great laughs and a couple of things I just would have never thought I would have heard aboutÂ… Like a gay Klingon wedding at a Sci-Fi Con, or Buffalo Man mixing a Klingon outfit with an elf outfit and going to a Con as Kay-Blar. (Keebler) ThatÂ’s right he was the Klingon Elf Kay-Blar and he would hand cookies out to the other Klingons. From what he was telling us, that didnÂ’t go over too popularly with the Klingons.

We also discovered that I can do a plausable version of Herbert, the creepy old man from the Family Guy. Which once I got started doing, I couldnÂ’t stop. The ladies were all creeped out by it; I think Will and I just found it funny. Especially when a creepy flatlander kept coming by to take pictures of the ladies. I couldnÂ’t help but to keep the joke going.

Even though the event itself was kind of crappy, we had a lot of fun because of the friends and the company. There were some mistakes madeÂ… mainly not enough beer. Definitely need to bring a second cooler to Galesburg if weÂ’re going to be drinking like that.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:11 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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It’s time for another one of my whirlwind adventures. I’m off this weekend to Bourbonnais, IL for the Gathering on the Theatiki. This is a pretty fun event to do, as long as the temps stay out of the “oh my god I’m melting” variety. For the last couple of years the temps have been in the upper 90s low 100s with high humidity. That may be why every year at this event I damn near get heat stroke, even with drinking gallons of water.

This weekend they are calling for temps in the high 70s and low 90s and maybe rain on Saturday. Me + Re-enactment = Rain. WeÂ’re prepared for a torrential downpour sometime Saturday afternoon. Hey, why should I start having dry canvas now?

If any of you are in the area and want to see a good battle, this is the one to attend. Of all the re-enactments I do, this one has the best battles. Plus if you stick around you can help me cull off some of the overstock left over from all the beer reviews. I think IÂ’m bringing 6 different beers to this event. 12 bottles of the last four reviews and two growlers from Carlyle.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:19 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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