While I already have several books that I'm not working enough on (Ordinary People & The Road Ahead e.g.), I figured let's start a new one haha!
Well, not really...
Like the title says, this is not a book. It's a collection of random thoughts and ar...
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November 4th, 2018
A few days ago, it was Halloween. In Canada it's a big thing. Let's be honest, any holiday that involves lots of candy becomes a big thing (and not just among children). In our street specifically, Halloween is very big, because of one particular house that make the street quite the destination for young and old looking for a thrill: The Creepy Dollhouse of Leslieville! It's a house with every square inch covered in dolls. Not just the house: the garden, the fence, everything. And the dolls rotate, so there's always a current theme. And they light up at night. In other words, it's perfect for Halloween, and every year families flock to the street for their trick-or-treating. After handing out over 200 pieces of candy and many cups of spiked mulled wine, we called it a day before the teenagers came out.
In Belgium, Halloween is relatively speaking a new thing. It's an experience that is now being shoved down the consumer's throat. But apparently there is a supply, so who are we not to fulfill the demand? I remember some 15 years ago, Halloween started to emerge and my old sports club (V.O.L.B.A. K.C.) organized a big party for all the kids. During the late afternoon, there was puppet show meets theatre meets treasure hunt activity for the club's youngest members. The story revolved around a kidnapped beautiful princess, an evil wizard, and a group of peculiar knights. But first, lets go even further back in time...
Growing up, I was always obsessed with the Middle Ages. The vast majority of my LEGO sets were medieval ones. I would watch and reenact movies about valiant knights going on a quest. My brother and I would dress up and engage in close combat in the garden until one of us ended up crying. That was mostly me, but in all fairness, I was disadvantaged: my brother was exceptionally tall (he was already taller than our father by age 12) and he preferred to wield a stilt-turned-lance. I always chose a sword, because I thought it looked better. That was my first mistake. By the time I would get in fighting distance, the giant would have knocked me down with one powerful sweep. We didn't hold back: at one point my brother shot me multiple times at close range with his crossbow – using pennies instead the harmless soft plastic arrows – but that is another story.
Our shared love for history and the medieval times manifested itself as well in the books and comics we read, or the daytrips our parents planned. Belgium has a rich comic and graphic novel culture, and one of our favourites was Johan the Red Knight, the heroic warrior whose adventures have been published since 1959. In the early days he was a traveling knight fighting against injustice wherever he encountered it, until he became part of the court of King Arthur. Throughout the decades, he would venture into fantasy realms and fight supernatural villains and monsters. I was never a fan of that. But, as of the mid-eighties, the creators started to tie Johan ever more into historical events (1), and gave several volumes a more historically accurate feel. The fictitious Johan would also join the Knight of Pynnock, who held court at the Castle of Horst. Needless to say, my mom would take me and my brother to the castle on day-trips, when Red Knight festivals were held. I remember my mom asking Sir Alfons de Beauchamps of Warwick in between two duels what the best way was to make a fake chainmail outfit for Bram and me. Even at a very young age, we took our re-enactments very serious (we had steel helmets and everything) Turns out silver-painted wool is the way to go!
As amazing as the castle was – I still have a fascination for castles to this day – the ultimatehighlight was the Red Knight jousting tournament in 1991. This was a massiveevent where the characters came to life and fought in single-combat forvictory. Who would have guessed that Johan would emerge victorious? The event actedout the storyline of volume #138 of the series, and in both the real-life eventas the comic book an immediate fan-favourite (at least my favourite) characterwas introduced: Sir Bernice the Drunken Knight. Obviously, Sir Bernice's role wasto offer some comedic relief, but he would influence me and some friendsseveral years later on Halloween...
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I must have been about 20 years old when I was one of the volunteers to participate, or act if you will, in the Halloween celebration at the club. The Party Planning Committee had come up with a fun story for the kids where an evil (but not too scary) wizard had kidnapped a princess. The knights of the realm would go on a quest to save her, but they needed help from the kids. He knights would charge from the little stage in the clubhouse out into the surrounding Kiel Park, and then the kids – divided into groups – had to find us and successfully complete challenges we gave them to earn points. Somehow all the points together were able to defeat the wizard, free the princess and capture a treasure of candy. No doubt there were some holes in the narrative, but it made perfect sense at the time.
In order to make the whole experiences a bit more fun for my friends and I who volunteered as knights, we decided we would incorporate the Belgian beer culture. We assigned a specific brand of beer to each knight (I was the Palm Knight), used the logos as crests on our shields, and acted out our scenes as if we were quite hammered. We were the Drunken Knights in service of Princess Silke of 't Kiel! The whole thing was a fun inside joke between us and the parents. Naturally, we did not ride horses, but used coconuts as taught by Monty Python.(2)
I told you before that my brother and I had some proper armor in our arsenal as kids. Our most prized possession was probably a fake iron pot helmet. Unfortunately, by adulthood, the helmet was a bit too small for me, and it would only fit my large head by tilting the helmet backwards. The whole thing made me look even more convincing as a disheveled drunken knight, but it also limited my vision quite a bit.
As the park was getting dark, and the game was drawing to its climactic closure, I was still on the lookout for some kids playing the game that needed to complete my challenge. I noticed some movement across a grassy field close to the clubhouse. Happy to be almost over with my little costume party, I grabbed my lance and pranced towards the group of kids, while blowing my imaginary battle horn.
A few meters from my target I heard the first teenager cry out in a thick Moroccan accent "Yo! Is that dude for real or what?" It was quickly followed by "What the fuck is that guy's problem?" My fantasy in shambles but without skipping a beat, I turned my coconut horse into a different direction and kept riding until I found the last group of little kids. I still don't like teenagers on Halloween to this day. Bunch of bratty pricks!
At the end of the day (literally) the Princess was saved, the kids had received their candy – the knights finally their beer – and the real party could start!
(1) Some examples are: The Battle of the Golden Spurs (1984), The Battle of Worringen (1989), The War of the Roses (1990)
(2) If you haven't seen Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, shame on you! Stop whatever you are doing right now and watch that movie. Get on with it!
