Tuesday afternoon: Busy, busy, busy . . .

How busy? Items 1-5 were written Monday.

1. I will be writing something, hopefully later today, about Elvis Fest. I covered it for five days, and it was amazing.

2. So what cool things happened in court at Ducal Challenge? I heard a couple.

3. I didn't weigh in on it, but I completely agree with the baseball commissioner's decision to let the one-hitter in Detroit stand as it is. Mistakes, by anyone, are part of baseball.

4. Getting more excited for the World Cup!

5. I have to take my third and final New York state teaching test Saturday. It's the Social Studies-specific one.

6. Last night showed the beauty and pain of covering baseball. We have a college-age, wooden-bat league team up here, part of the New York Collegiate League (Like the Cape Cod League).

For much of the game I sat at a table on the left-field side, typing on my computer with Internet access and enjoying a gorgeous June evening. But the game lasted 3 hours and 35 minutes, giving me 25 minutes to total stats and send my story on deadline. I never even got to talk to the coach. It's a good thing I had a good part of it written.

7. I will post more about life and work at another time. But I am hustling as a freelance writer.

Sometimes, editors don't even know they need me. I have to call them and remind them. Yesterday, I called the sports editor at the Syracuse paper to remind him that one of his local teams was playing a few miles from my house today. He reminded me he had two teams here, one in a regional final (the other's in a regional semifinal), and sure I could cover the games. If I hadn't called, I would not be doing the games.

There are knights and then there are *knights* ;)

This started from something Elias wrote about trying to keep a canton alive when folks preferred to play/work at the baronial level.

It stirred something I have been thinking about a lot lately.

We're getting into some interesting Intra-Kingdom Anthropology questions.

I have not lived there for about nine years, but when I was living in the Barony Beyond the Mountain, what you had was four stable (almost all the time) cantons that made up a unified barony.

There were two levels -- cantonial and baronial -- and they were both very steady.

You all know I read the East Kingdom List, although I consider unsubscribing on occaion -- like yesterday.

Anyway , a post by Master Elias made be think about the much larger picture.

He posted about having issues as a cantonial seneschal, trying to keep the canton going while most people wanted to play/work at the baronial level.

Now here's the thing, I am developing a personal philosophy of the SCA that posits that the structures, mores, views, etc. that you encounter when you start in the SCA are the ones that stick with you.

If I had moved to Elias' canton (same state, different barony), I would not have thought twice about taking both cantonial and baronial offices.

I look at this in terms of many things.

Just an example: In terms of knighthood.

Sir Kenric is always going to seem like a "young" or new knight to me. He broke in at about the same time. I put both of the men called Sir Angus into this group, as well as Sir Kai from Bergental. We interacted for a long time as non-peers. Do I respect them any less? Not at all. [Please read knight as "member of the Order of Chivalry."]

There are, then, "old knights." This is where it's a good thing that I do not fight, so they cannot remind me how young they are.

These would include people who became members of the Order of Chivalry  before I started in 1993 and would include Master Feral, Viscount Edward, Duke Balfar, Sir Stephen, Sir Mord and others. Always been knights. This lisgnalso includes men who became knights early in my SCA career, including Count Robin Wallace and Earl Yngvar of Aethelmearc and Sir Torrin and Sir Torvald.

Then there are those I consider "younger knights." This usually includes either people who started in the Society well after me or who have been knighted since I became a peer. This would include our king, Sir Yesungge and Sir Antonio. (Note, Sir Seosamh does not fall in here because while he just became a knight in the last two years, I have always known him as a peer and one of the scariest people in the SCA). [Just kidding.]

This works for me for most peerages, groups, laws, etc.

Anyway, I have been thinking on this.

Thoughts?

PS: Yes, some of these folks are here on LJ. I went with SCA names for simplicity.