<---*sobbing*

Thanks, Sas. I so miss the old days and ways, and especially - our forest.

Oh, that's nice! I seem to have missed the mud pit altogether, but otherwise a really great evocation of the old place.

And it's so sad that the world changed ...

*sigh*
Yeah, the world is a different place now, not just the faire. I get sad, not so much looking back at the childhood and womanhood I had at the faire, but knowing that my child will never have the open, free, safe world to experience the same things.

Not that I'd want my child to experience ALL the same things... ;-)

We all have selective memories - and the "good old days" were always about 10 or more years ago.
The "good old days?" To be alive is to change and embrace that change. Nothing ever stays the same forever, and if things did stay the same, we'd all grouse about that. Perhaps what we all get nostalgic about is the feeling we got when we first went to the faire, and got all our circuits overloaded by the sheer intensity and variety of experiences, so we mistakenly try to recapture that feeling by wanting to recreate the superficial, and ignore that which really was magic. What I remember about Blackpoint was that overall the participants were professional, and actually knew a little about the renaissance (or at least acted as though they did). There were hawkers that could quote whole passages from a number of Shakespeare's plays - and do it like they were on stage instead of the street, and almost all of the participants were really good at BFA - I think some of them spoke it year round.
Just a thought.
John Alchemise

I started at Black Point in 78...the description of what changed...accurate...thank you for the memory ;-)