Our Wholesome Family Outing

A conscientious parent these days has to be on the lookout for family activities of an educational and improving nature. So when my friend Pat told me she was going down to the rapid transit station last Thursday night to watch the sword fights, my ears perked right up. Sword fights? This sounded much better than going to an art museum.

I rounded up my victims family and piled them all into the minivan. Marcus came too. (We’re trying to introduce him to the concept of personal bravery.)

And there really was sword fighting, right there in the BART station parking lot. The “swords” are actually more like bamboo pipes, to avoid injuries that might require an emergency room visit, but the fighting was real enough, with loud clanking noises, and the helmets and shields and armor were fantastic. The coolest moments came when the fighters were whacking each other’s shields with loud clangs while a BART train rushed overhead.

These modern warriors are members of the Province of the Mists of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Each one dresses in the costume of a knight from his time period of choice. They’ve been battling it out in the parking lot every Thursday for almost twenty years.

All that fighting made us hungry, so we capped off our educational adventure by going to Berkeley for a couple of scoops of gelato. Because everything is really about food.