One more thing today… This is about a weird idea my twin had because of a scene in Roger Zelazny’s novel Nine Princes in Amber.
Here are the relevant snippets from that scene:
After about three miles we came to a barricade of logs and I began driving around it. A gate occurred on one side, and Random told me, “Stop and blow your horn.” […] We looked around us, and we saw a picture of a gent who sells Kentucky Fried Chicken in another place, staring down at us from a big sign. […] We drove over to Kenni Roi’s and got us a bucket full of Kentucki Fried Lizzard Partes and another bucket of weak, salty tasting beer. Then we washed up in the outbuilding, beeped the horn at the gate, and waited till a man with a halberd hanging over his right shoulder came and opened it for us. […] A tyrannosaurus leaped before us, hesitated for a moment, then went on his way, off to the left. Three more pterodactyls passed overhead.
The rest of the explanation goes like this: The Shire of Blackwater Keep, the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, owns (borrows more-or-less permanently) a piece of land on which they built a “keep,” actually a circular log wall with a gate in one side. Because we get lots of wildfires in this area, and because various young vandals like to ruin other people’s stuff, a couple of years ago it burned down and sank into the sand dune. (We don’t get enough rain around here for there to be any swamps. Sorry.) Lately there’s been a lot of talk (and sometimes even some work) about razing raising the keep so it’s available again for mock battles and whatnot. (They’re planning a “Raze Raise the Keep” event sometime in early October and are inviting SCAdians from other groups to come out and help with the rebuilding.)
While talking a few weeks ago about rebuilding the keep, Paul suddenly got an I have an IDEA look. “Log barricade,” he said by way of explanation.
My reply was, “I think I saw a post on Facebook once about some store selling large T-rex lawn ornaments…”
Alas, it appears that such lawn ornaments are far too pricy for a mere joke… *sigh*
