Do you wish you had started faire as a teen or younger?

[DT_Masters]

The camera captures a lot and often in its passes, it sees a non adult world. Sure, there are the children who are dragged to faire by their parents, the ones who might not want to be there as exhibited by their crying (the camera doesn't capture that....but memory does), but then there are the other faces, the ones enjoying the jump, one way or another, into make believe.

They are there, in memory cards or print, and I often wonder what it's like to see it from their viewpoint.

Now, in all honesty, it's probably a life I could not engage in anyhow, being a brat...................

.................. but I do wonder.

[Scribe_Wear]

I myself would have rather started faire younger, my girlfriend dragged me to our home faire of sterling in 2004 and since then we've been going back every year and love it move each year. Plus if i started younger i would have a lot more garb and would have had the money to spend it but now that money goes toward bills.

[Noble Dreg]

Never look back and wonder what could have been...

I am not the same person now as then.  I may have hated it at 10 or 12 and never have gone back.  You are a product of your experiences and change over time.  My experience then would be as different as my returning to riding tricycle now.

Nope, don't wish it a bit.

[Trillium]

I was lucky enough to have been introduced to faire as a HS sophmore.  I fell in love with it then and still love it now!

[Pirateleach]

i was first introduced to it twenty years ago at age 11, i was hooked...i went maybe once a year(maybe twice GARF did run spring and fall then), and whenever we had school fieldtrips to it .
in my early 20s i did not get to go much due to having a weekend job in retail.  But the past six years have been magical for me, as a renn regular. i think i appreciate it more so now as an adult going all the time than i would as a child.

[Wolfhawker]

I would love to go back and start Renning 10yrs ago.  Really would love to go back 1990, though, and get my 'ren on'.

[angusmacinnes]

No, I am good with it as is.  But thanks for asking. 

[DeadBishop]

I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like or what choices I would have made differently had I the opportunity to go to faire earlier than 16 years ago when I was a Freshman in college.  But then again, at that time being new to faire, it brought about my curiosity to eventually finding R/F.com and having it grow to what it is today.  Experiencing faire earlier may have never led me to search out the information that led me here, which means this site may not have evolved to what it is today. 

[Lady L]

I probably would have gone when I was younger, but there was no such thing in existence then.
Secondly, I doubt that my parents would have gone to anything like that, so I would have been out of luck.

[Merlin the Elder]

I was already 11 when the first faire was staged, and it was a couple thousand miles away...not much chance to get into it.  My first exposure was in my mid-30s at TRF, then a couple years later at a young Scarborough, still in its first decade. I wish I had caught the fever then, but I didn't. I did, however, get infected, and it finally started spreading through my body a dozen years ago.

Just as some folks head to the beaches each year for their vacation, we head to the faire. It's a marvelous release from the tensions of our jobs, and the frustrations of everyday existence.

If there were a faire closer to us, we very likely would have gotten more into it, more quickly. The expense of travel and lodging just a few years ago were just more than we could afford. Our home faire is 375 miles distant. Now, even if a good faire was to open close enough for day-tripping (hmm... there's a song title there somewhere...), I'm sure we would still travel home to Scarby.

[Laird Fraser of Lovatt]

I don't.  I went to TRF on a fluke but having an old soul, i fell in love at once.  It took a bit longer for the Rennie Bug to bite me... an ice cold, rainy, Thanksgiving weekend in 07.  TRF was empty except for staff and a few die hards... was one of the best days of my life.  Fraser of Lovatt was born......

[Molden]

Nah - I got started relatively late, but at such a key transition point in my life that I was ready to experience it so richly. Don't think I'd go back and change a thing...

[Sitara]

I did!  My first trip to Faire was when I was 12.  Went again when I was 16 and actually met my fiance then...of course, we didn't start dating until 7 years later.

[irish]

I did take the neighbor kids when they were around 7 years old and by the time they were 14, it was enough for them. Then I started taking my cousin at the age of 7 and by the time she became a teenager, she lost interest.
I think of it as escape for me, maybe as years went on, they thought it to be torture? Hahahahaha! 
My 'son' goes with me now and then. He started going at age 7 and is now 26. He likes it even more because of the mead!  I find it strange when he does drink. Oh lordie........lol!

[Ambrosine]

My parents took us once when I was  six or seven visiting Family in the Chicago area. I remember liking it, but we didn't have anything like it where we lived at the time. When I we moved to Florida my mom took me to BARf in the Largo days, I must have been 8th grade at the time. LOVED it, I have only missed two seasons since.
On the other side my son is being raised to be a rennie, he loves it, loves pirates,swords,messy food and all the attention he gets, he's 3, he gets upset if he hears mommy and daddy are going and not him (actually had to drop him off wearing regular clothing to his daycare on Festival Friday so he wouldn't know I was going with out him). My daughter who is now nine can take it or leave it. likes the dressing up but hates the heat and being outside.

I think if we had gone more when I was little I would have been like my son, we are two peas in a pod! I would have enjoyed every minute of it!