My Medieval Adventures

We as a people often romanticize things. I'm sure you understand what I mean but allow me to elaborate for those who may need clarification.  When a couple is dating they will often only focus on the desirable qualities and traits of the object of their affection to the exclusion of the less than desirable qualities and traits.  It is one of the reasons we use the expression, "Love is Blind".  It is also the reason why couples have such a rude awakening once they're married and the veil has been lifted. Part of this is because we do our best to hide our quirky and eccentric habits in a desperate attempt to get someone to fall in love with us. But once married they began to notice the things that they so blissfully ignored heretofore: the way he picks his nose; the way she bites her nails; the way he cleans his ear out with his keys; the way her feet turn into slabs of ice once it's time to go to bed and how she insists that you are her personal warmer. It could be any number of habits.  The point is we choose to ignore or are unaware of them and are deliriously happy about it.

As I was saying, we can romanticize almost anything. We choose to only think of the wonderful qualities of it.  I, myself do this when thinking of the old west.  I probably would not have made a great cowboy.  However, I don't focus on that. I would love to have been a cowboy.  I love reading/watching westerns. When I read a good western I am often transported into the book seeing myself as one of the characters. The truth though, is I don't care for horses.  There's no way I could spend an entire day on one, let alone a lifetime.  Also those guys had to be filthy and stink to high heaven 353 days a year (I'm of course giving them credit for a monthly bath-which let's be honest probably wasn't a high priority).  Do you get the picture?  We romanticize things.

We have done this with the Medieval era as well.  We ignore the unpleasant things: the feudal system, rampant disease, poor sanitary conditions, bathrooms that were little more than a festering hole in the floor (sorry, I think I just threw up a little) and instead we focus on the pleasant things: fair maidens, chivalry, knights, honor.  As a matter of fact we have romanticized it so much that they have created an entire dinner theater around the very idea of the middle ages.  This is where I took my wife for her birthday last month.

We have gone here twice before. The first time was on our honeymoon some 12 years ago.  We went a couple of years later for her brother's birthday.  Upon our first visit, we were assigned the Black and White Knight as our Champion.  And champion he was.  We shouted and screamed our heads off and our voices hoarse every time he appeared in the arena.  He eventually became the winner of that night and a fun time was had by all.

At our second experience, we were assigned the green Knight.  None of us in our party were particularly enchanted with this less than noble looking knight.  I remember wondering if this was his first foray into the battle arena.  He didn't succeed in any of the skills challenges, and if I recall correctly was the very first knight to be run through with the sword.  This of course left us wholly unsatisfied with our experience and instead of cheering on a knight, we began promptly to call for the demise of the monarchy decrying it as archaic and fraught with chauvinism and nepotism.

But for my wife's birthday, we once again returned to the winner's circle.  Upon our arrival we were ushered into a room to have our royal photograph taken.  Here you stand in front of a backdrop with a picture of a castle and for extra money you can put on a costume that no less than a million people have worn while standing under hot lights waiting for "Jimmy" to quit messing around and stand still for the stupid picture.  We passed on the communal cootie clothes and just took our picture in our modern clothes.  It did destroy illusion of the medieval scenery but no more than exorbitant amount to borrow dirty clothes would have ruined the evening.

After this we toured the stables.  That is to say we viewed the beautiful show horses in their tiny stalls enclosed by glass on one side and what seemed to be rotting wood on the others.  These stalls were so small I was fairly certain that which ever direction the horse went in, that was the direction he was forced to stay.  They were simply not big enough to allow a normal sized horse to turnaround. We read some interesting facts about the horses which I no longer recall (if you remember, I don't particularly care about these equine modes of transportation).

Shortly thereafter, we were escorted into the dining hall/horse arena.  We were seated at our table in the section of the Red and Yellow knight.  Our server began to bring us our drinks, ye-olde iced tea for me, while my lovely bride chose the King's Diet Pepsi.  As he was making his way to our seats, I flagged down the server and showed him that the knave in the dish room had failed to properly clean my flagon.  There was something growing inside of it and he apologized, genuflected and returned with a clean chalice for me to consume my grog. The meal was excellent. The ribs were especially delicious.  The chicken was a little dry but had excellent flavor.

Of course we consumed all of this whilst our respective knights were trying to collect rings with a lance or stab a hay target with a spear.  This was periodically broken up by several of the characters indistinctly uttered lines with a terrible English accent. Yet none of this dissuaded the enthusiasm of the group.  Those of us in the front row received flags decked in the color of our knight and emblazoned with the shows logo.  These were enjoyable and detrimental to the experience.  I say enjoyable because it was a souvenir and something I knew my boys would like.  I also say detrimental because the little boy next to me loved to wave his with great enthusiasm, however he did not take heed to the range in which he waved the aforementioned banner and repeatedly beat me about the face and neck with it.

Our group was by far the most vocal of all in attendance.  We struggled at first to find a way to say red and yellow in the cadence of a cheer but that didn't slow us down for long as someone quickly shortened it to "rellow" and thus was born a new color (heretofore known as orange) and a group of raving fans.  A special thanks must be sent to the marching band of Highland High School in Gilbert, AZ.  If not for the vociferous ravings of this group of teens our knight might not have prevailed.

Such as it is, we did reign victorious.  As we left the dark ages and all of it's lack of accoutrement's and headed back to the twenty-first century with it's smart phones and traffic, I breathed a small prayer of thanks, "Dear Lord, I am so grateful for my wife, the good time we had tonight and for indoor plumbing!"