There are several traditional celibrations held each season during the last few weeks of TRF for and by the cast and workers. On the fifth weekend is the party known as GiggleFest, a wacky sort of cross-gendered bacchanalia that I'll have to write more about later. On the sixth weekend is Naked Jester, a night of comedy skits and parodies that poke fun at the faire. (the script for a skit I wrote and performed one year for it is here)

Finally, after Day 14, the last of the season, there is a more serious cermony, The Toasting, where one and all are invited to toast and remember, among other things, those who have been with us in the past, but are no longer.

It's a bittersweet night. By the seventh weekend, there is a part of you that is truly relieved to have the season end, as you are physically and mentally worn out. If you have a regular 9-5 mundane gig, as most of the cast does, you've worked seven weeks straight without a true day off. (more if you count rehearsal and workshops) At the same time, you're already starting to miss the friends you see there every year, most of whom will scatter about, and despite your best intentions and solemn oaths otherwise, you'll probably not see again until faire cranks up again.

This year was especially poignant, as there were a few more missing comrades than is typical. Jeff Baldwin, the entertainment director, arranged for several of the musicians to perform appropriate tunes. The two I most enjoyed were performed by Jim Hancock. Jim has been a staple of this and other faires for many years, along with being a regular at the Kerrville Folk Festival, where he's played with such notables as Michelle Shocked.

He sang "Here's a Health To The Company," most appropriate to the occasion, and one entitled "Beggars to God." Though it was new to me, it must be a tune well known amongst the cast there, as everyone there sang the chorus along with him. Beneath this curmudgeonly crust of mine, I am secretly a sentimental cuss, and it brought tears to my eyes. It hit me hard. "Make love to each other; be free with each other, Be prisoners of love 'til you lie in the sod, Be friends to each other, forgive one another, See God in each other, be beggars to God." Seeing the words there on paper does no justice to the tune, so go track down the mp3 somewhere, or better yet, click over to Jim's website, buy the CD, and yell at him for not having a sample of that song available yet. (It's from his album "The World Turned Upside Down," which I immediately bought the next day)

These maudlin sentiments clung to me the entire next day, as we packed up our camp for the year, and headed home. The song had reminded me of an old friend, Carey Smith, a sweet and tender girl who was killed in a motorcycle accident in her early twenties. That was about eight years ago, and I still miss her. Try as I might, I could not keep the tears from periodically welling up that day as we drove back home.

CG finally noticed the tears dripping down from behind my sunglasses and asked me what was wrong. As I tried to tell her, it got worse, and I ended up crying like a damn baby, and had to pull over before I drove off the road.

Isn't it strange how one simple song can rip open an old hurt that you think might have scarred over after all the years, and force you to feel it all over again? "Be prisoners of love til you lie in the sod" Words to live by.

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Click here to get a printable map of the faire grounds.

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I've had a lot of strange things happen to me at TRF, and seen some even stranger ones. But this last weekend took the grand prize, I think.

Saturday was a miserable day at faire. It was raining off and on all day, and the patrons stayed away in droves. Total attendance that day was a mere 8853, according to the Beefeaters, who are in a position to know.

So, I took off most of the day to wander about and see some shows, as is my custom on the inevitable rain day or two we have each season. CG was with me, though in her mundane clothes, as the feathers and suede in her garb don't take kindly to getting soaked. We were headed back to our camp, where she was going to take the car back home and get another load of supplies for the bacchanalia we were hosting that night

All of the sudden I heard a voice yelling my name, or at least the name everyone knows me by there... "Hawke, Hawke!"

I turned to see a blond woman merrily waving at me. I didn't know her from Adam, or should I say, Eve. I walked over the fifteen yards so to where she stood with her friend, and tipped my hat. "Good day, lady. How might I help thee?" "Don't you recognize me? You talked to me for an hour one night. You changed my life."

My recall of the exact words of the conversation are a bit blurred from this point, as circuit breakers were popping left and right in my cranium, as is common when humans find themselves suddenly in the Twilight Zone. "Do excuse me lady. I did what?" "You changed my life. It was four years ago, and you sat and talked to me, and made me feel so much better about myself, it changed my whole life, and I've waited for years to find you and thank you."

Any chance of intelligent conversation on my end of the coversational teeter-totter melted away. I was, for one of the very damn few times in my life, compleatly speechless. "Huh?" "Don't you remember? You talked to me several times during the day as I was walking by, asking me to come by again, and that night during the fireworks, you sat with me and talked to me, and I was going through a terrible time, and you made me feel attractive, like a woman, for the first time in I don't know how long, and I went home, and I lost forty pounds, and my whole life changed, and I have this picture of us together, and I've been back every year since then, looking for you, and I never could find you, and I showed the picture to everyone, asking if they knew you, where I could find you, and I never could find you, and I don't have it with me today because I finally gave up and thought I'd never ever see you again, and now here you are, and I'm so happy!"

As she was talking, a faint memory started to seep up from the abyss of my subconscious, like water slowly soaking into concrete block, but it was still no more than a wisp of a whiff of a memory of a dream. I did remember watching the fireworks one night with a woman patron, waiting for CG to get off work, but I've done that quite a few times over the years. It gets dark out there, and it's not a Good Thing to have a woman walking the grounds alone at night.

Some of the emergency backup synapses started firing, at least enough to let the Mendacity Module dynamically link to the main memory core. I lied like a dog, chosing diplomacy over the truth. "Oh, now I remember! It must be because you lost all the weight I didn't recognize you. Sweetheart, you look great!" "Thank you. And it's all because of you." "OK, I kinda need to get going, I'm late for a show. Are you going to be around later?" "Yes, I'll be here tomorrow, too." "Great! Come by and see me, and we'll talk some more."

After I gave her directions to the booth where she could find me the next day, I gave her a hug, and walked back over to CG, who had discreetly sat down under a tree slightly out of earshot as soon as I walked over to say hello to the woman, whose name I still did not know. "Damn! That was strange." "What was that all about?" "That woman says I changed her life at faire four years ago Made her feel like an attractive woman." "What'd you do, fuck her?"

She was only half-kidding, and there was a bit of an edge to the question. Back then was a bit of a rough time for us. We hadn't yet hammered out all the ground rules for our sexual lifestyle, the HellBitch was still messing with us, and we had nearly split up a few times from the stress. "Nah, I'da remembered that. Just was being the standard flirtatious Leekeman. So she went home and lost forty pounds." "What on earth did you say to her?" "Beats hell outta me. I wish I could remember. I could bottle it and make a fortune putting Jenny Craig outta bidniss."

That night, after everyone had finally left, (we had about two dozen folks over for some gumbo) I sat in my chair underneath the gray skies, and fueling my recall with some sips of brandy, tried to remember the details of my talk with Debra. (not her real name)

Nothing much more came of the effort. I did eventually recall that she had seemed very down, and reserved, and lonely, content to let me blather on about faire, and life in the early 16th century. Though I don't specifically recall doing so, from her reaction, I most likely mentioned that in those days, a woman that was built the way she was back then would have been considered much more the paragon of feminine beauty than the skrawnky little toothpicks fluttering down runways at fashion shows today, and added that I was probably born in the wrong century. It's a statement I've made to many a buxom lass, both at faire and in the mundane world, usually as a riposte to some self-disparaging remark they've made about their size.

The next day, Debra came by the booth and handed me a card. I placed it in my pouch, and we chatted again for a few minutes. She lives out of state, and only comes to faire once a year, as part of a group on a chartered bus. I asked her if she recalled what we had talked about that evening. She admitted that she could not, it was just that I had paid attention to her that made the difference. She told me that I had asked her to walk by again the very first time I had seen her that day, which was a dead giveaway of the bit I had used with her. It's one I use at least a dozen times a day. In fact, it's also how I met Sirena, but that's another, longer, sadder, tale.

We had a pleasant chat for a few minutes. She wanted to take another pic with me, and so her friend (who turned out to be her daughter) shot a few pics. I dug out my AGFA and had her take one of us. As usual, it wasn't a very good one, as it seems to be a one man camera, and won't take decent pics unless I'm running it, and any pic with me in it is handicapped from the git-go.

Later, when I had time, I pulled out the card. On the front was a lighthouse. I wondered about the symbolism of that. Lighting the path, showing the way, something phallic, or just what she had in her suitcase? I dunno.

I opened the card and read...

Hawk - In case I do not get another chance, I wanted to leave you this. 4 yrs ago you changed my life. Your smiles, your shiny eyes and flattering attention made a difference in how I felt about myself. You touched me, and I have wanted to thank you for a long time. So thank you. I will always remember you and what you did for me.

Debra

She had already told me she didn't have an email address, after I had offered to email the digital pic to her, but there was her address on the facing page, and a request to write her someday.

I guess now I can go to my grave and know that I did at least one good thing in life. If the Jeebus Freaks are right, and I'm wrong, maybe this'll get me one of the more temperate seats in hell.

Is there a moral here? I think so. As I've said time and time and time and time again, the lack of self-esteem is a epidemic disease in our culture, our number one social illness. Sincere appreciation for others, honestly expressed, can help to ameliorate this disease.

Unfortunately, the cultural conditioning we have makes it difficult for both the giver and the reciever to handle the transaction. We are conditioned to assume that somebody must want something from us, when they make us feel good. We are afraid to express appreciation for others, especially if that person is of the opposite sex, and is not our partner.

Break the conditioning. Be an iconoclast, a rebel. Tell people what you like about them, and why.

You just might end up helping turn somebody's life around.

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