[MR] Peerage questions

[David Wendelken]

(I've had to split this into three posts, the original was too long to get
past the filtering rules.)  andras

 

(Part One B)

====================

 

>Not rewarding one's chosen folks just because of proximity or how much fun
they are to be around, but being willing to cross continents to find that
grail, 

>that person toiling away just because _that's what they do_ without the
protection of an official associate.  That's my opinion and what I'd do if I
were a peer.  

Bless you for that attitude.  Most of us can't afford the airplane fares
across the continent on a regular basis.  One of my squires moved to Japan
and then to Korea.  I can tell you that I became a lot less able to train
him.  Another gets deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan every other year, and my
ability to train him drops tremendously while he's there.  I'm now living in
Ethiopia, a 20 hr flight from home in NC, and all my squires are getting a
whole lot less attention and quality training.  

 

If you've got a job and lifestyle where you can overcome those kind of
obstacles, you can fill a real need.  The rest of us just have to settle for
hoping the peers in the other part of the world chip in and do their part.
Before I left the country, I asked another worthy knight to help train my
squires in my absence.  It was the best I could do.

 

>While I understand we're emulating a medieval society where there were
apprentices and squires, we're also emulating one where crusaders, the ones
who went out and about and sought things, were respected >more highly than a
non-crusading knight who hung back with his buds in Europe.  

Agreed.  When I was younger I travelled more.  My ability to travel to
events, for financial and career reasons, became very limited for the last
eight years, and will remain so until next year.  By then, God willing, I'll
be back in the states with a job that will let me get to more SCA events.

 

Except for those who have decided that the SCA is their real life, and the
rest of the world is just an obstacle to SCA activities, that's pretty much
how things will go.  People will be really active for a while, then life
will get in the way, then they will get active again.  It's a cycle.