Pennsic War XII - 1983

Hand lettered sign - I rescued it from the dumpster after war was over. The 'streets' that were formed by the camps got their own names. Still keep it on the wall in my room as a souvenir!

These are some photos I took in 1983 at the Society For Creative Anachronism's Pennsic War, at Coopers Lake Campground near Butler, Pennsylvania. I don't know the names of most of the people in the photos - I was just tagging along. Done with an Olympus Trip 35 that had a light leak, sorry!

The late Sheldon Lofthouse (d. 1990)

Lofthouse was later charged with gross indecency in a washroom sex case in Guelph, Ontario that went to the Supreme Court of Canada. I didn't know he was gay at the time - he was sharing his tent with a woman, but later I would see him in the showers at the University of Guelph Athletics Centre, even though he wasn't doing any sports activities there. At first he said the shower at his place was broken, but later after he'd moved and was still in the showers he said he just wanted to feel clean. 

I remember there were supposed to be rattlesnakes at the campground - never saw any - the big lake was off-limits because of snapping turtles but there was some skinny dipping at a smaller swimming hole - we'd gotten some beer, I think it was Iron City or Blue Dwarf, that was so dreadful I tossed it to the lovely blonde lady who was swimming. Met one woman whose dad was trying to get planes out of hangers during Pearl Harbor. Tuchuks, a group based on John Norman's Gor fantasy novels, had a separate camp which was hard to get into but I did, and some of them won a slave auction for some women that I think were from the massage parlour tent - I thought it was a mock auction but they were serious and one guy said "It will be worth it" when the bidding went high. They won, and I don't know what happened to the women.