After Muskogee 2006
It’s amazing how long one can go without writing when something happens that makes you speechless. You probably think I’m referring to Jeremy’s exodus from the band just before Memorial Day this year but no, that was pretty straightforward. I’m talking about the band getting stiffed for all but 10% of our fee for the Medieval Majesty Faire in Williamsport Pa last summer. I had been doing great writing for a while until that happened and I just didn’t know what to say. Maybe the best thing is to forget the whole thing ever happened and write about what I did between weekends of that ill-fated festival which was to go visit Jeremy and family at their lovely bed and breakfast in Beacon NY. It was an amazing house with actual “wings”that you could get lost in and there were perfectly white clawfoot bathtubs on each floor. I stayed in the “captain’s room” I think it was called and had a great time hanging out with Jeremy, Lauren, and Barbara all week, much of the time at the French restaurant where Lauren worked. Jeremy and I had some good tunes in the carriage house where all the tools were and where I set up the lathe for a few days. We spent one day doing yardwork and I got to see the man of the house in action building a stone step from the pool to the back yard. The city of Beacon was re-doing the curbs along the road and replacing the old ones with beautiful white granite blocks. All along the road there were discarded pieces of granite that didn’t fit and were there for the taking. There was talk of building something out of collected white granite cast offs but I don’t know if it ever happened. I had a great time in Beacon with those three at their little estate that week, hanging out in the kitchen with the gigantic stove and walk in pantry with every kind of spice you could imagine except anything with capsicum. This I remedied on day two by going to the store for all manner of tabasco and cholula and whatever else I could find made up of ground hot peppers.
Thank goodness the beautiful Maryland Renaissance Festival was just around the corner. It was my third full year at MDRF and I thought it went splendidly. What to say about Maryland. Most of you were there so you remember. I could write pages about the happenings of every weekend so I think I’ll just skip to 2007.