Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Dear Robby,

Check out the buxom medieval boob maiden in the photo above. She was just one of the many fascinating sights we were able to see at the annual Medieval Faire at beautiful Jubilee State Park near Galesburg this past Saturday. The Medieval Faire is one of our favorite summer festivals. Every year Rudy, Dylan and I eagerly await the June weekend on which this particular festival is held because it’s hands down the best one of the season.

Most of the summer festivals in the Central Illinois area consist of little more than greasy E-coli burgers and toxic curly fries sold from decrepit mobile food-borne-illness laboratories. Then there is always the ubiquitous array of schmaltzy arts & crap kiosks selling things nobody in his or her right mind would ever want to own. I’d really like to know who would buy a set of wind chimes fashioned from old Budweiser cans. Who among us believes that a slab of plywood cut and painted to resemble the posterior view of a farm wife’s polka-dotted butt is a nice lawn accessory? Who needs yet another concrete porch goose complete with a seasonal wardrobe that includes a raincoat and a tiny goose-size motorcycle helmet?

Occasionally there’s some form of mild entertainment at these local events, but it tends to be hit or miss. A couple of years ago I passed up a chance to dance with a rockin’ group of retarded people at a festival in Downtown LeRoy, IL. I sincerely regret that I didn’t take that opportunity when it arose. Those people were having the time of their retarded lives dancing to the music of a live band playing old fifties tunes in the LeRoy town square bandstand. They were dancing for the sheer joy of it, and I was itching to get out there and join the gang. The only thing holding me back was my fear that non-retarded onlookers would think I was making fun of them somehow.

I’ll never forget this one retarded guy playing air drums and flinging himself around the bandstand with such wild abandon his fanny pack nearly unleashed itself and flew off into the crowd. I just loved that guy, stomping to the beat in his black dress socks and Velcro gym shoes. I foolishly sat out that dance-of-a-lifetime and, looking back, it seems to me that I was the truly retarded one that day. Eventually their minders herded him and his cohorts back onto the short bus and off they went, oblivious to me and my lost dream of dancing like there’s nobody watching.

Most of the festivals around here are just glorified flea markets, the exception being the Jubilee Medieval Faire, truly a “festivus for the rest of us.” Suffice it to say it’s a genuine recreation of a medieval country faire, including sword-play, jousting, archery and epic battles involving scores of knights and knaves.

This year Rudy and Dylan took a keen interest in the archery competition. About a half-dozen young men in full middle-ages regalia stood in a line shooting authentically fashioned arrows from simple gut-strung long bows. Their target was a stuffed burlap dummy strung from a moveable rope at the edge of the clearing. We were told by the announcer that the dummy was a Frenchman, as evidenced by the fleur-de-lies prominently stenciled on its burlap chest. Somebody would pull on the ropes causing the dummy to “run” across the target range of the archers, who would then shoot as many arrows as possible into it as it passed by. We were told this was good practice for war, as everybody knows embattled Frenchmen always try to run away.

The archery team had also constructed a working replica of a trebuchet, which is a sort of catapult mechanism designed to fling rocks and other deadly projectiles at the enemy. The announcer told us that medieval warriors often used it to launch dead livestock over castle walls in order to spread panic and disease. It sounds like a pretty good idea to me. How do you think the terrorists would react if you guys dropped a few diseased pigs into one of their enclaves? Might be worth a try. The trebuchet we saw was a small version used only to launch a few apples as a demonstration. Dylan suggested they ought to use rotten apples, just to make it that much more realistic.

The jousting tournament is always my favorite event. Knights mount up and rush around the field performing feats of derring-do on horseback. The competitions range from snagging hanging rings on the tip of one’s lance while charging along a fence to racing down the field, grabbing a sword stuck into the ground and using it to impale a bale of straw. I am proud to tell you that not a single Knight fell off his horse this year.

Somebody always issues a challenge and a duel is fought on the ground. Protective buckets are put on their heads and they beat the crap out of one another for the enjoyment of the crowd of happy fairegoers. We, the happy fairegoers, yell, “Huzzah!” as instructed by the announcer.

This year was the third in a row that I’ve noticed a particular horse with a large pockmark on its neck. I’ve long wondered if it were an old jousting wound and this year I had a chance to ask the Knight. He explained it was birth defect commonly known as “the thumbprint of Allah” among Arabs. I was glad to hear it since I’ve always assumed that horse must be as dumb as dirt to continue eagerly charging at pointy lances after having been previously impaled.

I suppose the event most fairegoers find most exciting is the Grand Battle. Various teams, or “houses” as they call themselves, engage in vigorous thumping of each other using large padded sticks. We spoke with one of the participants who proudly told us, “It really hurts!” Personally, I find the battle scenes ridiculous looking. A bunch of grown men run around whacking one another until one of them falls down, which usually happens within 30 seconds. The costumes are great, though, and include shields made from old road signs. Every year I wonder why the heck these guys go to all the trouble of painting elaborate coats of arms on the front of their shields and neglect to paint over the orange CONSTRUCTION ZONE emblem on the inside.

The best part of the Jubilee Medieval Faire can be found among one’s fellow fairegoers. At least 40% of the people in attendance arrive in costume. Some actually dress like the folk of the middle ages, but some don’t seem to care what the theme is and wear bizarre renditions of their own device. A couple of Darth Vaders were there, along with more than a few Ninjas and cowgirls. I saw at least a dozen otherwise normally dressed adults with animal tails inexplicably flopping behind them. Many others had small horns poking from the sides of their heads. The opportunity to bare one’s breasts seemed to be irresistible to women of all ages. Judging from the vast quantity of deadly-white flesh Dylan was staring at all day, I’m guessing there were many a sunburned boob by the end of it.

People at the Jubilee Medieval Faire seem inordinately willing to make complete asses of themselves, which greatly enhances the fun of it all. Middle-aged women proudly flaunt their flab in numerous belly dancing troupes. (Where the heck were these gals when I wanted to dance with retarded people in LeRoy?) There were so many belly dancers strutting their stuff this year I have to wonder if belly dancing is on its way to becoming what line dancing was in the ‘90s. I hope so because it really doesn’t look all that difficult. I’ve never learned the steps to the Electric Slide, but I’m fairly certain I can swivel my hips for minutes at a time without falling down. Toss me a Hoola-Hoop and I can conceivably entertain you for hours on end.

If an award were to be given for “Most Embarrassing Person” at the 2005 Medieval Faire it would go to a young man I like to think of as “Belly Boy.” Amid the belly dancing women of one small troupe, a lone man swiveled and gyrated with such feminine sinuosity you’d swear he must have been infused with massive doses of estrogen. It was like a train wreck- you couldn’t help stopping to gawk. A crowd formed and Belly Boy took that to mean he was even better at this belly dancing stuff than he’d thought. One of the female dancers beamed proudly at him and announced to the shocked and sickened onlookers that this was Belly Boy’s first public performance. Glancing around at the looks on the faces of the red necked men in the crowd, I began to worry it might also be his first public beating.

Fortunately, Belly Boy was allowed his shining moment and, as the haunting middle-eastern music swelled to a crescendo, he made the most of it. With a haughty flutter of his eyelashes and a perky shake of his nipple rings, he twirled his way into the nightmares of impressionable children and homophobic mid-western farmers forevermore.

Much Love,

--Mom