In some American farm towns, the locals throw horseshoes in their spare time. They might play some softball or hold a fishing tournament.
In Maryland, they joust--dairy farmers and horse breeders, galloping through the dust like latter-day knights, almost every weekend from May to October. While the rest of us climb aboard SUVs for trips to the supermarket, they're saddling up, shouldering homemade lances to skewer tiny rings while friends and family applaud.
As long as they've still got time to finish the daily chores, that is.
"When the kids were little, lots of times we'd have to get home to milk the cows in the evening," said Leon Enfield, 68, of Brunswick, now in his 53rd year of jousting. "We very seldom had time to take a vacation, so we'd go to the jousting events on Saturdays.... Now there's nine of us, and five of us can be competing in the same class against each other. It's good competition, and nobody gets mad at anybody, and there have been a few times--not many--when we have won all four places."
There would be 10 Enfields jousting these days, but, as Leon's wife, Shirley, said, "I was so busy raising kids and fixing meals and keeping score that I never really had time to get back into it."
Jousting has been going on in Maryland for 374 years, ever since the Calvert family brought the game ashore along with Maryland's first English colonists.
Yet, in an age when virtually every other so-called leisure sport--bowling, cycling, running, badminton, you name it--has elevated its top players to the status of full-time professionals, jousting remains a rustic outpost of amateurism. With its $5 entry fees and $50 prizes (if you're lucky), its churchyard and fairground venues, and its decidedly regional appeal, jousting is about as folksy as an old family quilt.
"You can't get a scholarship with it, you can't make a living with it, and you can't go to a sporting-goods store and buy the equipment," said Mary Lou Bartram, 72, of Aberdeen, the sport's grand dame. "It's strictly down-home."
This is not the jousting of Camelot lore, mind you. There are no lances crashing into armored breastplates and helmets, knocking riders and mounts to the ground. It's like the little verse says on this year's Maryland jousting schedule:
\o7 Enjoy with us the modern trend,
Where rings are speared
Instead of friends.
