A fine misty fog drizzled and rolled over the ground. As morning light broke, I sat on the back patio steps anticipating the day to come. Normally the fog would have been a welcome change to the typical Southern California weather, but not this morning. I had paper flags, streamers, and tablecloths decorating the tennis court, surrounding walkways, and other event areas. At 11:30 a.m., over one hundred people, in full costume, were going to be descending on this location for a medieval party. As a group, we had emptied out every costume store in the San Gabriel Valley.
The planning committee for this event was made up of people I chose because I knew they enjoyed having fun and believed in creating the impossible. The committee (I use that term loosely) had met over a period of several months, planning and having a good time during what we loosely called meetings. This event was just something I wanted to do for fun. That was the stated goal; fun! Members of the committee went on a recognition mission to The Medieval Times, a Southern California medieval theme dinner theater attraction. We went ostensibly to do some fact-finding and to gather ideas for our event. To be truthful, if all we had was the enjoyment of the committee meetings, it would have been enough. But there was more to come and it only got better.
We arranged for two guys dressed up as jesters to be parking attendants. We set up gaming sites, refreshment booths, craft areas, and then, of course, the tennis courts turned into the banquet hall. We placed eight-foot long rectangular tables around the outside edge of the courts, divided into four sections. Each section had its own theme color. As people arrived, they checked in at the registration tent and received a color marker that matched with their dining area. This color would also indicate the jouster they would root for throughout the event.
Yes, a jouster! Our decision to have jousters brought about one of the questions we needed to conquer during our planning: how do we do a joust that utilizes a horse on a tennis court? In the end, I found stick ponies colorfully painted in different colors. I’m sure you rode one of these when you were little, but the question for us was, would grown men ride them? Surprisingly, the answer was yes!
Another question that came up was whether the men would wear tights to this event. Believe it or not, they did! We had knights, jesters, monks, jugglers, peasants, minstrels and all sorts of people dressed in medieval clothing. Every guest came in costume. Most of them rented their costumes, but some borrowed them from Renaissance Fairs, and a few people even sewed their own. It was utterly amazing to see how everyone got so thoroughly into the spirit of things!
One big concern for me was that in order to be true to the period, we chose not to use eating utensils. How would our guests react? To me this decision would add to the atmosphere and the authenticity of the event. But it brought additional problems with it, such as what we would feed the people and how? We finally decided to assign men to dig a big pit and we cooked Cornish game hens with red potatoes and a few vegetables in oven bags wrapped in foil, right there in the ground. We even had suitably attired “wenches” serving the food.
One of the event's highlights was a best costume contest, with the winners being crowned king and queen of the event. For entertainment we had the jousting team, which was made up of four men. Our jousters included three very fit and handsome college-age men and one, let’s just say, much older man. I had met with the men before the joust and it had been decided that the older gentleman would win the event. Yes, it was rigged, but what great fun! The whole event was wonderfully enjoyable! Our goal had been met.
Why this story? Because I believe it is incredible what people can do, what joy can be had and how it can spread, and what astonishing things can happen if one person has a vision, believes it is possible, and then surrounds themselves with great people that get on board and catch the vision. This is just one possible example, but oh, what a pleasure it was! I look back and I still find it unbelievable to realize what we accomplished. Men in tights! I mean men of all ages, even manly men . . . in tights! Everyone got into the spirit of it, bought into it, and lived and enjoyed that day of fun.
Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive. Howard Washington Thurman
