The Donnan Party



No, no, no--not the Donner Party, but the Donnan Party. We were doing fine and did not have to eat each other.


Okay, remind me--just how did I get suckered into hosting this thing? Oh yeah, now I remember.

On a road trip, my good friend Donnan says with determination, "My birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, and dammnit, this year it falls on a Friday. Do you know what I want for my birthday? I want all of my friends to get together and us to go out and get sloshed!" We talked and the suggestion of crawling through brew pubs in the Pittsburgh Strip District became a plan. Then there was the question of who? "Our friends" collectively meant folks that we fence with, folks from all parts. How does one optimize the time of friends traveling south from Syracuse or Ithaca, New York? Hell, we fence!

...and thus "the Donnan Party" was hatched like some gooey and icky denizen from a Cthulu yarn...

Look At Us! Aldan fencing Felice
Portia fencing Keyard

On March 18, 2000, which was St. Patrick's Day weekend, a bunch of us got together to fence and wish our good friend Donnan "the Solitary" MacDubhshithe a very happy birthday. In the course of this outing, we had fencers from four regions of AEthelmearc converge and fence at two locations of Butler County Community College and then at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Kusar fencing Aldan
That's Gotta Hurt! Who're you lookin' at?

So, who all was there? From Region 5, we had Keyard, Portia, and Aldan. From Region 3, we had Caroline, Lodovick, Iago, and Kusar. From Region 2, we had Eoghan, Michael Alewright, Merald, Armand, Feliciano, Colin, Geoffrey Montgomery, and Corwyn. And, of course, from Region 1, our birthday boy Donnan limped in.

Let's Eat!

After fencing for several hours that day, we cleaned up and headed down to Valhalla Brew Pub in the Pittsburgh Strip District. We had to wait a while for our table, and it was actually was seeming like the Donnan Party might turn into the Donner Party when we were finally given our seats and served. We had good brew, good food, and good company with good friends, and the house jazz band even played "Happy Birthday" for the big Irish guy.

We Saw Aldan Kissing Donnan the Bard One More Time

In other words, we had a lot fun.






SWORDandMUG