May 7th, 2008
I was thinking today about how much I miss the Marin Renaissance Pleasure Faire. I used to think people that went to the RPF were a little weird — in high school we would refer to them as “drama freaks”. But I was off base about that. It was a blast.
The RPF used to be held every summer in Novato. It was located in a great spot, in a beautiful grass valley with huge oak trees all around. It was hotter than hades, so relaxing in a shady spot under one of the big oaks was all the rage.
Lots of people dressed up as…well, I don’t really know what they were dressed as — let’s just say they were dressed for the period. I remember overweight middle-aged guys dressed like Friar Tuck drinking mead from mugs, and women dressed in torn bodices and Elizabethan dresses pretending to be drunk, horny wenches. (If that’s what the Renaissance period was really like, I was born five centuries too late.)
There were great games like “Pelt the Privateer”, where you could pay $5 to throw 5 tomatoes at a guy who berated you in olde English. You could buy gigantic roasted turkey legs and eat lunch like Henry the Eighth. I saw real jousts on horseback, and every day there was a parade featuring the queen of England and her courtesans. Lining the streets were all sorts of little booths selling period trinkets. Oh, and there were LOTS of places to buy beer. It was kind of like Disneyland for adults.
Unfortunately, the great little valley where the RPF was held every year got developed into a subdivision and a golf course about 8 years ago. The developers chopped down 4300 huge oaks to make way for McMansions. The faire, which was financially struggling anyway, never found a great spot to settle again, and probably won’t return. Yet another part of Marin’s history is gone, I fear.
Where can I get my hands on some mead?
