Postscript for a King

Tears were unavoidable, but the stories that drew them were all in warmth and laughter. Embraces as we left were felt all day Sunday.

Before the opening of King Richard’s Faire that morning, we gathered to pay tribute to our king of some 15 years who passed away last fall. In keeping with the spirit of a renfaire, and very much in character with the heart and soul of Tom Epstein, it was all celebration.

Memorable accounts came from the King’s Guard who walked the shire with him each faire day, from Greenman who holds faire seniority in more ways than one, from our Artistic Director and from Lord Percy and Hey-Ho the jester who were with him in skits for all of the 21 years I’ve been there, from Gamers who manage the Glen where King Richard X often stopped to throw knives at a bullseye he never missed by much, and from other staff and cast members.

Two of them are a couple who last year named their son “Rocco Thomas” for a man who helped stage the groom’s marriage proposal at the faire.

That story and all of the others are far better than I can possibly relate. Here’s hoping those folks might add their accounts to a King Richard’s page or site, to which I might then add my own.

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When Artistic Director Kitsy Olson asked if I had something to say, I was taken by surprise. At King Richard’s I am an outlier in the geographical sense of the word. Up here 40 miles north of Boston, I doubt that anyone else at KRF lives within a 30 mile radius. Unlike many of them, I never performed with Tom on the stages of Providence or on Massachusetts’ South Coast. I knew him for just eight weekends a year.

At faire, I am a strolling piper whose role is to entertain mostly where lines might form. While the King and His Court preside over main events on the main stage and at the jousting field, I spend most of my time at the front gate and around the food court. Tom and I rarely crossed paths, except…

Not long after I joined in 1999, I got in the habit of playing behind the front gate before it opened. Through the cracks, I could see crowds gathering as soon as cast call was done. Before opening, the King & Court always have a skit on a balcony overlooking the gate toward the parking lot that begins with a trumpet blast. Between the end of cast call and that herald, I fill a void.

Tom noticed this early on, and before ascending the stairs to the balcony would walk toward me, catch my eye, wait for my pause, and then start whistling the Bach Bouree that Jethro Tull turned into a jazz tune fifty years ago. I joined in, and we ran through it twice before he gave me a director’s wave to continue with the B part while he turned in a flourish and went his way to the balcony.

That the space is enclosed makes for very sharp acoustics, so it’s easy to be clear and loud at the same time. Tom, easily the best whistler I’ve ever heard, could be both while sustaining a tune. Amazingly, to me anyway, his pitch and intonation were identical to mine as he leaned in to within three feet of me. The sensation was that of hearing myself in stereo. I could hear the two sounds but could not have told which was mine and which his.

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Such was the story I added to the tributes. I might have added mention of driving through Morristown, N.J., in August, 2005 to the see the Revolutionary War sites. During our tributes, there was uncertainty about where Tom was born and raised before someone said New Jersey. Wish I had thought to add Morristown.

Historic sites there are impressive, as are the half dozen stone cathedrals all lined up at the edge of the town center, as if, two centuries ago, every Protestant sect was competing to reach the heavens first. Most memorable, though, were the awnings of downtown’s largest building with the name of a department store, “Epstein.”

A month later Tom would tell me that yes, he hailed from Morristown, but no, those Epsteins were no relation. Sounded like a family feud to me, as Morristown is no Newark or Camden. In fact, it’s smaller than Newburyport and barely larger than Carver.*

Whatever the truth of the matter, Tom kept in touch with his friends from Morristown High School. Not too many years ago, he made a video of himself with the KRF cast singing “Auld Lang Syne” that he sent to them for their 40th Anniversary Reunion. He also sent it to me when I asked for his help while writing a column about the two versions of the New Years Eve favorite two years ago, video link below.

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At my own 50th reunion, my Central Catholic High School classmates in Lawrence, Mass., were unanimously amused to learn that I perform in a Renaissance faire. They found my writing a newspaper column far more in character for the nerd–or “egghead” as we said back then– they recalled from the halcyon 60s. That split decision makes it a delight to show anyone the thumbnail picture the Newburyport Daily News runs with my column.

Tom showed up at one cast call, I think in 2008, with a camera–not a phone, but an actual, real, honest camera–to take head shots of each of us, which he soon sent to us. That very week, my editor realized that my 1988 photo with black hair didn’t look like me anymore and asked for an update. All I had to do was forward Tom’s, and the paper’s photographer cropped out the beret and the top of the pirate shirt.

Most all newspapers put thumbnail pics of their columnists at the top of each piece, though you see them only in print, not on-line. I do believe that I am the only columnist in the country, probably the world, possibly in history–newspaper, magazine, or on-line–with a thumbnail taken by a king.

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Our tributes concluded when Tom’s successor, King Richard XI, asked us to join him in singing a hymn titled “Parting Friends”:

Farewell, my friends, I’m bound for Canaan,
I’m trav’ling through the wilderness;
Your company has been delightful, 
You, who doth leave my mind distressed.
I go away, behind to leave you;
Perhaps never to meet again,
But if we never have the pleasure, 
I hope we’ll meet on Canaan’s land

Though new to me, many in the cast knew the song, and it was their collective rendition that conjured up memories of our king–as an actor, a singer, a joker, a whistler, a photographer, a gamer, as a cook-turned-king (who else could pull that off?), and to all always as a friend. It took a worthy king to capture so many diverse tributes for his expansive predecessor.

As we like to say in the Renaissance, “Merry Meet, Merry Part, and Merry Meet Again!”

And as we say now: “Long Live the King!”

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*Three years later I was in Chicago where I kept looking up at signs saying “Weber Grills.” When I asked our Chicago-based Lord Percy about it, he said the same thing. Since Chicago is about 200 times the size of Morristown, I take him at his word. And only now do I recall that the largest sign that loomed over downtown Lawrence in the 50s & 60s was “Garvey-Walsh Insurance.” Family? Back then, I always said yes, but today… Anyway, the sign is long gone, so it’s a moot point, but I do wonder: Is there something about growing up in a place where your name is heralded that leads you into living theater? Could make for a fascinating psychological study, and many of KRF’s villagers are college students.