When I got started in the SCA, I was very industrious.  I came to my first official meeting already in garb, already in persona. (I had come to a meeting a month before, but no one recognized me when I made my grand entrance later.)  I bought a half-case of Known World Handbooks from the Stock Clerk, and sold them to members.  I built a round tourney table and a viking tent from the plans I found in the KWH, and after becoming intrigued by the nine-men’s-morris game listed within, I made several gameboards and began selling them.  I also demonstrated medieval games at the public demos that the EMHS ran.

A lady who had gotten to know me when I got started in the SCA saw how quickly I was making a niche for myself in the shire, and said to me one day, half in jest, “Devon, you’re practically a household of one.”

Household?  What’s that? I thought.  I asked around, found out a bit about what a household was.  Then I looked at my mother’s large empty front lawn, with two old oak trees, and envisioned archery practice held there.  “If I’m to be a household of one,” I thought, “I shall call it ‘House TwinOaks’.  And I’m going to have an archery event here, to celebrate the SCA’s new year.”

Thus began my household, and its seminal event, the TwinOaks Archery Revel, or the TOAR, as it is referred to now.  I decided that my household (me, that is) would abide by two beliefs, or tenets.

1)… Never take anything too seriously

2)… Avoid politics whenever possible ( see tenet 1 )

I described the above to the person who had introduced me to the SCA, a friend called Randle.  After telling him about my house and its two tenets, he said to me, “May I join your household of one?”  He and I became known as the two oaks of the house, although it was recognized that I was the head of it.  We even devised a handshake for our house, based on one we had seen on Battlestar Galactica… but with medieval meanings (first, check there are no daggers up the sleeves, then make sure that his shoulder armour’s on good and solid, then give him a one-armed hug).

Soon after, a lady heard us describe it, and she joined. Then, Randle became involved with a lovely lady, and his new lady joined the household.  I started a wonderful relationship with the lady who was to become my wife, and she joined… and it went on from there.  We added an unofficial tenet to the list:  We don’t recruit.  But we do tell about our house to any that want to know, and if they want to join, all they have to do is ask the head of the household if they can.  In those early heady days I never said no, and in the rare cases that I wished I had, the person usually drifted away from the household anyway.

At one time, the household has claimed as many as 27 members… but times change, people move away, and other interests take them from the SCA.  Still, every year I hold a TOAR, and I began running an event the weekend after Pennsic as well, called (of course) the Post-Pennsic Party  That name never really stuck, and some merely refer to it as the ‘War Stories Bonfire’, since the purpose I cited for the event was for me to learn all the things that had happened at Pennsic as soon as I could, since I rarely got to go myself.

Someone once accused my house of not holding true to our second tenet, because at the time, members of House TwinOaks held the offices of herald, MoAS, chatelain and signet for our shire.  I tried to explain that the members had taken the positions because a need had to be fulfilled – especially that of herald and MoAS – for without those offices, the shire would cease to be.  No one else had accepted the task, so we had stepped forward.  I reminded them of the ‘whenever possible’ clause.