50 week beer run okay fine mom, root beer run

     A good friend of mine Meg on the Go (she can be found at http://icyfar582.blogspot.com/ ) has mentioned Pennsic in many of her posts. Well I also attend Pennsic.

     While for me the best way to describe Pennsic is home, I suppose you need to know what it really is. Pennsic is a medieval reenactment. This year makes forty-two wars. Over ten thousand people attend this event and each person brings something new and wonderful that makes the Pennsic Wars what it is. It was created by SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and takes place in Butler, Pennsylvania sometime in July and August each year.

     I can shoot a bow and dance like a medieval princess because of this event. I know how to spin and knit and if I tried really hard, I could probably make glass. I can give you details on the witch hunts in the fifteen hundreds and the Spanish Inquisition thanks to the classes I can take.

   There's nothing like walking out of your camp in a corset and a full length skirt and saying hi to a man wearing a kilt. To some it seems surreal,  a dream. To me? It's reality, and it's home.

     Because of this event I get to laugh when a girl at my school says "I wish I could wear a corset." My response will always be "Careful what you wish for, they make it hard to breathe."

     These pictures will help you understand at least a little (but they won't help you to see the magnitude of it).

     I have made friends that will be my friends for the rest of my life. I love being able to walk barefoot and say hi to total strangers without being afraid of what could happen to me (except on Mardi Gras night, that party is a whole other story). I love waking up in my tent and rolling off a deflated air mattress while trying to put on a dress without being able to stand up entirely.

     I can never explain to someone the smell of coals that cooled over the night, or in the case of my brother waking up with a wolf spider on his tent and it being completely normal.

     I can sing and make money (and then promptly buy a slushie or something chocolate) without being arrested by police. I can walk topside (think medieval downtown) without having my parents hover over me as long as my cell phone is on.

     Pennsic is home for me. I will never feel like I am home as long as I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt and carrying a book bag. And even though I have to start covering my hair this year because I'm too old to be period and not have my hair covered, I'm counting down the days till zero night.

     Pennsic, I have five weeks till I set foot on your soil again. So fellow Pennsic war goers, you have a little over a month to finish collecting your supply of root beer. Are you ready?  Because I know I am.