Goodbye, Slyme.

In spite of the name, you were one of the best people I knew.

(ALERT: To foil a nasty 'bot that inserts links to advertizing into my text without my knowledge or permission, where you see the letters "x" in front of a word please ignore it. If the links are still there they're not mine, and please ignore them. They're just ads. The ad-placement service has a web site with an "opt out" procedure if you don't want them messing with your content, but it doesn't actually xwork. Damn them to hell.

Oh, and by the way, the "x" thing apparently doesn't always work, either. I placed one link in the text, the link to the SCA home page; any other links, especially and "mouse-over" links or anything originating from something called "Text Enhance", hereafter to be called the Evil Bastards, should be ignored.)

Those who know me well know that I've been in the Society for Creative Anachronism for years; most of you even know what the hell the SCA is. (This won't make much sense to the rest of you; but this will xhelp. Go to the Society for Creative Anachronism's web site.)

One thing you need to realize about the SCA is that you can know someone well for twenty years and still only know them by their SCA name, and have no idea what their real name is. People who've known me in the Society for years know me only as Gunnbjorn or Gunny and have no idea that my actual name is Mike.

I knew Arnie as Slyme. At some point I heard his actual name was Arnie but I always knew him as Slyme. Back in my early days in the Society (the late '80s) he was part of a “household” that purported to be a group of beggars, actually a bunch of really cool guys who performed a sort of “beggar schtick” among the “lordly” at feasts and revels. They tended to take begging rather seriously; Slyme used to come to camping events with little more than a backpacking tent, one set of SCA clothes and a begging bowl.

His one SCA costume consisted primarily of an old tunic in a hideous green. The story was that he once got xfood xpoisoning from something he'd picked from this tunic, something that had been there for who knows how long. Such was Slyme.

In time the beggar's household broke up; Slyme assumed a more “lordly” persona (but only just) and a more lordly name that I never bothered to learn. To me he was just Slyme.

He never really abandoned the beggar schtick. He and I would sometimes go into a sort of “The Lord and the Beggar” act that would amuse people who knew us and annoy people who didn't; Arnie was a friendly, outgoing guy that everyone seemed to like right from the start and I would often catch hell from those not in on the joke, for being so mean to such a nice guy.

What make all of this so remarkable is the state of Arnie's health; he was the only person I knew in worse health than me. He and I used to joke that between the two of us there weren't enough working parts to make up one whole healthy person. The truth is, his health was worse than mine and if you know how bad mine is you'll have an idea of how bad his must have been.

As the years progressed his SCA persona became more cavalier (though his dress only marginally so). He learned to fence and fence well, and at last year's Pennsic War he generaled the Midrealm Army in the fencing battle (which put a thousand or so fencers under his command). Incidentally, the Midrealm won that battle.

Knowing Arnie taught me to hold my head up no matter how my body failed me. Any failure in this regard I can only attribute to a flaw in my own character. All in all, I have to say that I am a better person for having known him.

Arnie passed away yesterday morning; complications from a burst appendix, as I heard it. I never knew his full name, or even his “proper” SCA name. It seems a bit disrespectful now to refer to him as Slyme, but I really don't think Arnie would mind. He did so love that schtick.

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