Kane

[BRACKETT@gemini.massolant.navy.mil]

Poster: BRACKETT@gemini.massolant.navy.mil

Though I didn't know Michael John O'Meyer as well as some, I still 
will feel his loss.  I can still remember him when I first met him in 
1982.  I just transfered to the USS Tecumseh SSBN 628.  He was just a 
newly frocked YN2 (SS).  The only common link we shared at that time 
was RPG's.  He always had the smile that we all know so well.  
Memories of being woken out of bed on weekends by his belly flop on 
my poor body, his ordering a triple everything pizza from Dominos 
when I said I would buy, and th eway he used to kid us all.  Back 
then he had not yet adopted the habbit of forehead licking.
    I am glad that we both shared a friend in Gregor Kinney.  I had a 
1979 copy of Soldier Of Fortune magazine that contained an article on 
the Society For Creative Anachronism and a car.  Greg had the fighter 
practice location of the local group, then Shire of Hidden Mountain, 
a group that he would eventually become the Baron of.  We started out 
as fringies, that group that sort of associates ourselves with the 
SCA but aren't really members.  You know, those that we cringe at.  
Kane used to embarass me at later events with the stories of us when 
we fought with shinai and boken.  The one he liked to tell was the 
one that he stole my wakasashi as he was on the ground and I took his 
belaying pin and stabed him with it.  His reply was "HA thats a 
belaying pin" and he threw me off and came after me.  Back then we 
were an even match his strength vs my speed.  Thing changed.  We were 
both asked to join a household headed by Thalgar O'Shannon.  He 
accepted and I sort of faded away rom the SCA.  My going to sea kind 
of assisted in my break.  When I came back I found that his desire to 
be a knight was strong.  He could beat the tar out of me as he chose.
    Kane and I lost touch once he was out of the Navy and I 
substituted dating to SCA activities.  But I had a young man assigned 
to my division that talked about the SCA and a man named Kane.  
Baron Kane and his wife Muirgan ( Sally O'Meyer).  The same Black Kane 
O'Shannon that I knew.  The same Kane that stood up to Thalgar by not 
giving up the O'Shannon name when Thalgar decided to leave the 
Society and became just DP1 harvey, a Navy man.  The same man that 
got me to become active again!
    Today as I fight I wear the same grey tunic that Muirgan made for 
me.  The one that the neck hole fits a man of much more stature then 
my 160 pound body has.  And the lesson that he told me after running 
the guantlet to reearn my Mountain medalion.  his words "This 
guantlet is not to see if you can beat the fighter taht wished to 
earn this medalion, it is to see how he fights, to determine how you 
can use your combined skills together on the field of battle.  
Anything more that 3 rounds before letting him defeat you undermines 
what we as fighters want to teach those that want to join our ranks.  
Never give an easy kill but alow them the opporunity to find a target 
and continue on with the gauntlet."  I still practice this precept of 
his and have passed it on to others that fought me to earn the 
medalion.  It seems that Syr Kane took his belief into the ranks of 
knighthood.  
    I will miss him.  Perhaps not as much as others that knew him 
more, but nevertheless, I will sorely miss him.  

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