[Ansteorra] Conversation starter ...

[Jennifer Carlson]

My first encounter with the SCA also involved a Speedo.  It was a summer in the mid-70s and I was all of eleven or twelve years old and participating in the Sooner Swim Meet in Norman.  The meet was at a pool in a public park.  I was walking off a race when, through the trees, I saw people in strange clothes.  They were like something out of a book.  They wore tunics and cloaks.  I was in a swimsuit and wrapped in a towel.  Now it seems funny.  At the time, it was magical.
 
Fast forward to a Sunday in April of 1979, when my dad handed me a section of the newspaper saying "This sounds like something you'd be interested in," and I read an article about a medieval war (at Oolagah, I think - I would later learn it was known as "Willow's War").  I was interested, all right, but frustrated, as the article gave no contact information.
 
Jump to the Fall of 1980 and my senior year in high school: in the middle of a lunchtime session of "Starfleet Battles", one of the players mentioned that his sister was in the SCA.  Finally, contact!  I attended my first fighter practice shortly after.  That fellow's sister is HL Estrill Swet, and one of the other gamers that day eventually became known as Centurion Colin Ui Niall.
 
Talana