The Gazette asked Count Jehan de la Marche, eighth King of the East, for memories of some of his early SCA experiences. He sent us this first installment with the note that it is written from memory and others may well remember events differently.

I joined the SCA on October 31, 1969 at the Second Tolkien Convention in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I was living in Bowling Green, Ohio, at the time, and what I joined was the Middle Kingdom, at that time a small group in Chicago led by King (and later Duke) Cariadoc of the Bow. I went home and started the first SCA group in Ohio in 1970, the March of the Marshes, which later joined with a group in Cleveland to form the Barony of the Middle Marches, which has now devolved into several baronies.

My first contact with the East Kingdom involved an event in Cleveland, Ohio in early May 1971. We had been negotiating by telephone for some time for a joint event, and a carload of Easterners came out for this one.  They were delayed, so we fought the first part of the tourney outside — it was very cold for May, and there were even a few flakes of snow in the air.  The winner of the Middle Kingdom portion of the tourney was Andrew of Seldom Rest (later Duke, now, alas, dead). When the Easterners did get there we moved inside; they fought a separate tourney among themselves, which was won by Rakkurai of Kamakura, and then he and Andrew met for the championship of the day, won by Andrew.

I witnessed the beginning of the Pennsic Wars (which has often been retold wrongly). (more…)