Nice While It Lasted

Tomorrow, after 17 months of working from home, I go into my office. I pick up my personal things, and come back home. Because effective Wednesday, my office - a building which was undergoing renovation 17 months ago and was boasting a number of newly painted walls and a newly built receptionist desk - will no longer be ours. I expect that there's been a heck of a lot done to remove the servers and other proprietary equipment we had in the building to do the job we do. 

And while I am pleased at being able to continue to work from home for a further amount of time, the tension is still there.  There was a statement made during the announcement of this change that there may be a new office being placed in another suburb.  

Now, I will freely admit I may be just a little bit spoiled after the last few years.  I mean, let's be honest.  My job prior to this one had literally a ten minute commute if I hit every single stoplight.  But to be fair, it was also a job that regularly saw raises because minimum wage changed.  And yes, I began at that job at what was the state's minimum wage.  And then It crept up bit by bit.  And to be utterly fair, they hired me when no one else would even consider it, and I did actually double my hourly wages when working for them.  Not that it made a big enough difference in my bank balance or my mental health, but it was a job.  

This job is great.  It is stressful, but it is also challenging and it's a good one.  It doesn't mean that I'm not looking around, though, because as I learned over the years, when you stop looking at the market and adjusting your skills to meet market needs, you're likely going to find yourself as the horrible example, rather than the fellow who fell out of a window and landed on his feet on a stack of mattresses.  When I fell out of the window, I was about six stories up - and landed on my head.

Lesson learned.

Another reminder came this weekend about another ... well, experience which I try to cherish, annually.

Back in what was likely the fall of 1980, I hopped into the back seat of a friend of mine's pickup.  His older brother was in the front seat, and I was able to go, with them, to the Twin Cities.  When I think about it, it was beyond a whole different world, back then.  It was ... a different reality.  I mean, parents today would more than pause if their teenaged children would request to drive some 100 miles away, spend a day at a festival that was ... relatively unknown ... and then expect for them to return unscathed.  Back then, it was ... no worries.  Today - I honestly gulp every time my kids leave my sight, but I guess that's me.  

We came from north of St. Cloud to the small town of Shakopee.  We'd all been there a few years before, as we'd all attended the same grade school, which, as a reward at the end of our eight years in that school (or if you were lucky, you might have shown up for the last year or two, and then gotten the reward), but we were taken from our school buses to church first thing in the morning, then loaded back onto a bus, which took us from our school parking lot to the parking lot of the state capitol.  We got a tour of that building, and then we got a tour of a local TV station.  Then we were taken to Shakopee for about six hours at the then-new amusement park, Valleyfair, which was just opening for the season.  And then, we hopped back onto the bus and came home.  That was our eighth-grade field trip.  

And on the other side of Shakopee, in pretty much the country-side, a plot of land had been set aside.  A huge, gigantic field that was apparently unused - and being from farm country, you did not often see that when a field was left totally unused for grazing, crops, or rest - but this two-mile-long field sat next to a small, in relative terms, seasonal park which was where they held Minnesota's own Renaissance Festival.

Back in 1970, a group of folks got together and thought - for whatever insane reason - that it might be a money-making venture to bring artisans, food vendors, costumed players, and people with disposable income together for a couple of weekends to transfer some of that income from one group to the others.

I had been attracted to this sort of event because I was, even then, intrigued by Dungeons and Dragons and imagined that the culture I would soak up at such an event might help fuel my imagination and plans for any sort of D&D Adventure.  And while some of the ribald teasing and joking back and forth was eye-opening, it became, frankly, my happy place.

I know Disney hopes to tie that thought to their theme parks, but I can assure you that in the past few months, when stress and situations required that I find something in my mind, in my experience, to anchor me in a positive place of thought that would sustain what little sanity I was clinging to in that moment.  

And inevitably, my mind would seek out an incredibly specific spot.  In the Renfest Grounds, there is a building known as Bad Manor.  This is the site where people who choose to do so participate in The Feast Of Fantasy which is a multi-course meal, with entertainment, that requires reservations often a year in advance, and it's always full.  I'm not too interested in it because most of the meal is made up of things I would not care to eat, or these days, things I should not eat.  

But near that building is one of the very many open-air performance areas.  It's known as the Bear Stage because the trunk of a tree was carved into a twelve-foot-tall brown bear.  Anatomically accurate is probably not how I would explain it, but simply noteworthy.  It happens to have a few other trees around to cast some shade.  For many years now, at least thirty, there has been a hanging chair vendor there that sells these chairs made from canvas and some solid dowels.  For a number of years and trips to the festival, it was my goal to have enough money to buy one of those chairs because I had the dream of seeing my wife, with one of our children, napping in such a seat.  

I've yet to purchase that specific chair, and may never do so, but it's also across the way from what has become the Hall of Artisans - a sort of hall of fame of sorts showcasing the best work from previous years.  Prior to this hall of fame, my mind tells me it had been the shop of a stained-glass artisan who was producing some absolutely breathtaking windows.  One that struck me and has stayed in my head for at least 35 years was the image of an Eagle over a lake and green hills.  It was spectacular.  Like many works of art on the grounds, I found myself moved by it and it stayed in my head.  

And when I needed a pleasant spot to hang the last strings of my sanity and try to remain anchored here in the good side of the world, and not give in to the despair that surrounded us, it was that piece of grass.  This year, it is my intention to take my camera out of my pocket and shoot perhaps forty or fifty pictures as I turn around in a circle.  I won't be able to capture the smells or sounds, though I might also try capturing a video, but it will give me a more vivid color picture to tie down that memory.

And there are thousands of other memories that tie me to that plot of land in Shakopee.  The several trips with great friends as we wandered about the grounds, split up, and unable to reconnect until sheer dumb luck or the ride home found us together, because this was in the pre-cell-phone era.  

And there will always be the memories of a trip I helped to organize among my college friends.  They were the New Group after many other friends moved on, graduated, or were otherwise too busy for our annual trip.  This new group split into three vehicles, and I, in my somewhat trusty new-to-me Ford Tempo, took several other friends in my car, and led the parade.  We got onto the ground, and then, as groups tend to do as I have learned over the years, we started to be attracted to our specific interests.  And one of my new friends, the young lady who happened to be the girl friend of one of my passengers, found herself with me.  I found the young lady incredibly intriguing.  She was eloquent, articulate, and in one thing that I found that was quite refreshing from some of the other young women whom I'd spent time with in previous years, she was opinionated and self-confident in a way that did not come off as stuck up or egotistical.  

And then there was the magical moment.  I'd left the stand of a sword vendor that I'd long wanted to purchase something from, and so, rather than in my head being a little bit of the D&D Wizard I usually played, I felt slightly dashing and experienced.  After all, this young lady had never encountered a Renaissance Festival, and this was at least my fifth trip by that time, it was my neighborhood.  And as we stood near one of that year's newest attractions - a rather giant - nearly two stories tall - rocking horse ride, she looked over my shoulder and noticed her Italian professor.  She ducked behind me.  

I'd never had a young lady this interesting use me as a sort of shield for simple avoidance of someone she sought not to see her.  If I was used as that sort of shield, the other person would note that I was so much bigger, I made an excellent place to hide.  Or they'd just leave me out of it altogether.  But this young lady grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards her so that I blocked the view of her teacher.  

She explained what she was doing, and I took the event in stride, so I thought.  And we wandered the grounds, gathered the group together, and eventually returned home.  And then the weather turned.  And for months, as it so often does here in Minnesota, we were at or below zero.  And I was back and forth to school, to work, and ... to work.  And then more, much more work, because my financial aid ran out at school.  And so I had to leave school.  And many of my friends lost touch with me.  And I continued to bobble along.

And I spent weeks trying to figure out why the hell my car stank.  I had cleaned it out, looked everywhere (I thought), and couldn't find the problem.  Then one day I reached under the passenger seat.  And aside from the other mess, I encountered a broken milk bottle.  Plastic sort, a half-gallon, with a label of a convenience store which wasn't local.  And then I remembered.  It belonged to the fellow who had ridden to the Renfest in my car, not with his then-girlfriend.  The young lady who used me as her knight in shining armor - or at the very least, as her shield.

So I learned how to steam clean a tempo, which was an experience I would not recommend.  And the car until the day I traded it in, stank slightly of rotten sour milk.  And at the end of the summer, that young lady called my home when I was home.  I'd been working from 2:30 pm to 11 pm every Tuesday through Friday night, and then from 3:30 to somewhere between 11:30 pm and 2:00 am every Saturday.  I had two Saturdays off all that summer, but when you get a management job at a fast food restaurant as the Closing Crew Leader, it was good money.  And it had led to a promotion to assistant manager by that fall.

So I was home when the young lady called.  And I did chat, and she said that she would try to catch up later.

And so she and her roommate brought to me the plans they intended to use to build themselves lofts for their dorm rooms.  Now, I know, gentle reader, that you're not fully aware of my history, but more than a few years before they came to me, I'd gotten sideways with the University Administration by driving a couple of lofts through a glaring loophole in their rules.  

Now mind you, this was a sister school, so their rules varied.  I fully expect that these days those rules are probably fairly close for both schools because I expect that these days, schools for women embrace the young ladies who are seeking STEM-related careers, and fully welcome young ladies who wish to build their own lofts.

And while I mean no disrespect to the young ladies who presented to me their designs, it was heartbreakingly obvious that they had no construction experience at all.  A loft is typically a platform that one can construct to save room and make a dorm room more efficient.  It places the bed on a platform, as one rarely finds themselves jumping on the bed in a dorm room.  And in those days, one typically sat at the desk, therefore combining the two spaces so one slept above one's desk so that one could do their work below, it might be possible to crowd in a refrigerator, a liquor and TV cabinet, and even a couch into a very tightly-packed dorm room.  

So when they showed me a platform made from a single thickness of plywood, with four unbraced 2x4 legs in the corners, I knew I had to step in.  

And in less than two weeks, I'd built two lofts for these young ladies.  And the young lady who used me as her shield, and had left the number of messages with one of my family members over the summer that failed to record a callback number, or their names, all summer long, was offering to cook me dinner.  And so I offered to also cook a dinner for her, and bring out some movies for her and her roommates to watch with me.  And because I was employed full time without any other expenses at the time, I'd also rent the VCR.

Yes, kids, we used to do that.

And in a series of events that continued, that young lady became my bride.  Her mother's first words, after hearing I had proposed, were a joyful "oh good, someone else to pay her bills!"  We continued to laugh about that, even up to the events of August 8, 2019, when she passed away.  And that year, instead of attending the Renaissance Festival, we dealt with a broken crankshaft, rented a car to get to her funeral, buried her, and dealt with the rest of the fallout that fall, which in the end, meant I'd missed the Renaissance Festival of 2019.

We'd gone in 2018.  It was a tight budget year, I'd just started a new job, but we enjoyed ourselves.  Our daughter spent two seasons at work on the festival grounds. A friend or two of hers also worked there.  And every year, that big field gets a little smaller because the aggregate company that owns the land surrounding the festival grounds continues to dig out the rock and other material which they use for their various business needs.  

And we continue to enjoy Renfest.  Though, back in January of 2020, when I received an offer in my email which stated that I could get half off a pair of season passes, I thought to myself that would be an excellent use of some of the overtime pay I'd earned over the year end/"Welcome Season" weeks of 50-65 hours a week.  So I plonked down a little over $110 for a pair of season passes, so I could attend as many days, as long as I wanted, because I had a pass that would mean I wouldn't have to spend the former $12 entry fee which had risen, over 40 years, to $25 if you bought the pre-sale $2 off tickets before reaching the gate - per day.  So that's right.  For $110, I bought two passes which would pay for themselves in a little over two visits - because the first visit, if we went as an entire family, would have been $100 of pre-sale tickets.  But if the two of us went, that was two days, $25 each, and the third time we went, the tickets would be absolutely worth it.

I'd attended one year twice.  But more than two times?  I did make it to every day of the 2010 festival.  I missed two days of the 2011 festival.  As in, I was at the back gate by 7 am every Saturday and Sunday, and I was at the front gate around sunset every same day, to pick up my daughter, who was working there.  I never went into the festival, because at the time I was unemployed, had no money to spend there, and did not want to be wasteful.  But my daughter had a job.  

And now, so do I.  And I find Renfest as Stress Relief.  Though I doubt I could write it off.

But next weekend, I'll be out there early Saturday Morning.  My wife will be somewhat owly, but we'll make it worth her time.  And I fully expect that by three or four in the afternoon, we'll leave.  We'll still be stuck in a bit of a traffic jam to depart, but it won't be like the 6 pm drag.  And we'll be prepared.  And go potty before we leave the grounds.