Impressions of Pennsic: Lochleven
Aug. 13th, 2007 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurThe previous whine aside, I have to note that this was oddly one of my best Pennsics in some time. Indeed, that may have been partly due to the weather. Since the heat was draining me so badly, and I simply wasn't up for dancing much (and it was too rainy to go visiting as often as I normally would), I wound up spending much of this War just hanging out in camp with Lochleven, getting to know the village better. That proved quite lovely: for the first time, I started to feel like someone *living* there, rather than simply a guest sleeping there. The result is that this Pennsic turned out to be a genuine vacation for me, something it hasn't been in a number of years. One lesson for the future is to tone down my expectations of how much I *should* do at Pennsic. Having some commitments is fine, but I should leave myself ample downtime as well.
The Sea of Blond Children: I've long heard that kids often start out rather blond, and then their hair gets darker. But this was a vivid illustration of the principle. Nearly all of the children in camp (and there were quite a number of them) had bright blond hair, far lighter than that of any of the parents around. This made it notably harder to figure out which kids went with which grownups, although I mostly had it down by the end of the War.
Related to that, it also drove home the way the SCA messes with expectations about looks. The rule in the camp seemed to be that if the child had very short hair it was male; if it had medium-length hair it was female; and if it had really long hair it was anybody's guess. Indeed, I observed this outside of camp as well -- several times I saw people trying and failing to figure out a child's gender.
"Night Falls": The recurring sight in Lochleven this year was coming into camp to find the dinner tent full of people, heads down, drumming on the table, and then shouting accusations at each other. Werewolves was the game that took over the encampment for most of the War, which isn't terribly surprising in retrospect: it's highly social, just a little bit roleplay-oriented, flexible for almost any number of people, and well-suited to a large group stuck under the fly until the rain stops again. (Although it does remind me that I need to get a Primero reconstruction that I really *like* worked up. I suspect it would be popular here...)
The Sea of Blond Children: I've long heard that kids often start out rather blond, and then their hair gets darker. But this was a vivid illustration of the principle. Nearly all of the children in camp (and there were quite a number of them) had bright blond hair, far lighter than that of any of the parents around. This made it notably harder to figure out which kids went with which grownups, although I mostly had it down by the end of the War.
Related to that, it also drove home the way the SCA messes with expectations about looks. The rule in the camp seemed to be that if the child had very short hair it was male; if it had medium-length hair it was female; and if it had really long hair it was anybody's guess. Indeed, I observed this outside of camp as well -- several times I saw people trying and failing to figure out a child's gender.
"Night Falls": The recurring sight in Lochleven this year was coming into camp to find the dinner tent full of people, heads down, drumming on the table, and then shouting accusations at each other. Werewolves was the game that took over the encampment for most of the War, which isn't terribly surprising in retrospect: it's highly social, just a little bit roleplay-oriented, flexible for almost any number of people, and well-suited to a large group stuck under the fly until the rain stops again. (Although it does remind me that I need to get a Primero reconstruction that I really *like* worked up. I suspect it would be popular here...)
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Date: 2007-08-14 07:38 pm (UTC)The Prime Rule of Pennsic: It's your vacation, stupid!
--- from Silverwing's Laws.
[Insert smileys here]
Yah, I found, as well, that I had to cross a substantial lot of stuff off my potential-to-do list in favor of hanging about camp in an under-tunic, drinking water....
Regarding The Sea of Blond Children
Date: 2007-08-20 05:37 pm (UTC)(shortest)
1. boy
2. girl
3. boy
4. girl
5. boy
(longest)
I didn't count baby Ian, as he is practically bald anyway, or the two brown-haired boys, as this discussion was about the blonds.
Also I didn't add in the four children who were on the meal plan but not camping with us. Add those, and the tally looks more like this:
(shortest)
1. boy
2. girl
3. girl
4. boy
5. girl
6. girl
7. boy
(longest)
...plus another brunette.
I didn't really think about what a high percentage of them were blond. I'm responsible for three of the blondes and one brown-haired child. I think one of my blonds will almost certainly darken to my sort of chestnut-color, and one will possibly darken to Seamus' very dark brown (individual hairs are changing over very, very slowly, but his hair still looks blond overall). I expect one of them will stay truly blond though her hair will probably darken a smidge.
The question is, will their blond hair turn darker to match ours BEFORE ours goes completely gray, or after? Time will tell... ;)
Re: Regarding The Sea of Blond Children
Date: 2007-08-20 05:37 pm (UTC)Re: Regarding The Sea of Blond Children
Date: 2007-08-20 11:17 pm (UTC)Re: Regarding The Sea of Blond Children
Date: 2007-08-20 11:16 pm (UTC)I suspect it was more striking to me, since I was meeting so many of them for the first time, and trying to figure out who was who. The ubiquitous blondness did make it more challenging.
And yeah, may as well count the kids who were simply visiting -- I mainly was thinking about "kids around camp", rather than the ones who were actually living there, so the ones like Josiah count...