[Sca-cooks] A toast to the SCA

[kingstaste at mindspring.com]

Good Gentles, I ask you to raise a glass with me.
	25 years ago this weekend I attended my first SCA event, Trimaris Memorial
Tourney at the Mariana Caverns in Mariana, Florida.  I rode to the event
with 3 other folks and all our camping gear in a mid-sized sedan (boy, those
were the days!).  I met my future husband, Knikolos Major of
Salem-by-the-Sea.  I drank Krupnik for the first time, and bugged the fellow
who brought it from Friday night until Monday morning for the recipe, which
I proceeded to make for my college roommates and supplemented my book money
with for several years.
	I paid my Royal University of Meridies 2 dollar registration fee (now
there's an investment that I've really gotten my money's worth from) and
took my first RUM class - Basic T-Tunics, from Knik as a matter of fact (he
never remembered me from that class, but I still have his handouts).
	I attended Court for the first time and watched them awarding this strange
thing called an OOO - to Ammalyne's dog - I was seriously confused.  I also
saw a gentleman (Lord Seamus Mccryu McHoo) awarded with the OOO, and a
watermelon plaid kimono that a strange beggar fellow called "Mad Randy" (Hi,
Orlando!) modeled before handing it over.  Though I didn't really understand
what was going on, I loved it, and knew it was funny even if I didn't know
why.
	I know I attended feast, but don't remember much about it except eating it
out of my Girl Scout mess kit.  I stayed in my 2-man pup tent (which I still
have) and had 2 dresses to wear that was my entire SCA wardrobe.  All in
all, I had one hell of a time.

	So, here's to the Society for Creative Anachronism.  A fascinating,
frustrating, individualistic, intelligent, faithful, loyal, artistic, and
wonderful group of people.  I couldn't have found another group I would
rather have spent a quarter of a century with.  I have never been a
'joiner', and in fact have not belonged to any other organization other than
what professional obligations dictated.  I can not imagine what my life
would have been like without the SCA as a background to it.
	Raise your glass of mead, home-brew, sekanjabin, krupnik, or rose-scented
water and join me in a toast to this organization that has given so much to
me.  Thank you one and all for being a part of it, and here's to another 25!
	Sincerely,
	Mistress Christianna MacGrain