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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, September 2009 - Columbus, OH
Chapter 4th: Of the pirate's afternoon adventures that took place once the Santa Maria was closed to the public; the arrival of the wedding party; some comments on them and their completely bizarre dislike of Becky; how the triumphant pirates were made to go stand "over there somewhere"; and just what, exactly, "fluff and shuffle" means. Sort of exactly.
(Photo: Shannon)
The wedding was scheduled to have the ship beginning at
5pm, so we had to hide all of our stuff below deck and clear off the ship before then. All that
hard work tired the pirates out, so they decided to go and hang out in the
park on the mulit-leveled concrete grass decks. I don't know who has to
cut the grass on those things, but I sure don't envy them. Fortunately,
pirate re-enactors seem fine with sitting around and yakking with each
other about...well, usually pirate re-enacting, collections related to
such and African and Eurpoean swallows.. Plus movies. We really get into
movies for some reason.
Right: A Saturday Afternoon, Pirates in the Park by Georges Seurat (and Shannon Gallatin). From left, Bloody Marty Rackham, Red John Roberts, Count D'Booty, Rosabella, Bloody Bess Flint and Andrew Thatcher.
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At their repose, the pirates indulge in their hobbies and trading re-enactment related scuttlebutt. Above, Shannon breaks out some of his mini-cannon collection to show it to Michael Bagley. At the Santa Maria re-enactment in May, Michael told me they had forgot birthday cake candles for a cake, so a mini-canon was used in their place (they really fire!) Shannon said the mini-mortar (above center) is the smallest firing cannon he's ever seen.
Below left and center: Thomas (from Paynetown) and Dan Needham in deep discussion. Let's bend an ear...
"The swallow may fly south with
the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in
winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?"
" Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?"
" Not at all. They could be carried."
" What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
" It could
grip it by the husk!"
" It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a
simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a
one pound coconut."
"Yep."
"Yep."
Below right: Lady Constance finds another way to deal with a bit of spare time.
(Photo: Thatchers)
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We were also fed, thanks to Kate, who caught the wily ferret or weasel or whatever it is, skinned and gutted it, and cooked it for us (below left). Ok, that is an unmitigated fabrication. Actually Jennie Gist (below center - with her brother) again provided for us. I would like to say that she was able to cook it on the new fancy, PC brazier (below right), like she did for breakfast, but time was of the essence. So she used a crock pot to make a chicken dish for everyone. (Well, everyone except me. I received a brick of cheese to go with rest of the non-chicken dinner items.)
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So all was peace, all was calm ...until the wedding party arrived.
At first they were cordial and all, sticking to their little groups, obviously discussing things that were no doubt far less interesting than swallows and mini-cannons. Probably stuff like what the bride would wear, how ridiculous the bridesmaids dresses were (they're nearly always ridiculous), how ultimately useless they would be to the poor girls that had to buy them to amuse the bride, how nice a day it was and who was going to win the third race at Hialeah. We pirates stuck to our little staked out plot of park and they clotted in small clusters on the sidewalk.
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Some people said the wedding party looked like farbies, but I actually thought they struck a nice balance between pirate and comfort. (Not everyone wants to be as realistic as they possibly can. Especially when it's their wedding...there's enough inherent discomfort with trying to bring two families together without adding shoes designs created in the 18th century to the mix). So I give the spirited young people (above left), the groom (above center-left), the bride and her party (above center-right), and the vicar (above right) high marks for getting into the whole TLAPD spirit and having their wedding on a ship. (The vicar was most accommodating when I asked if I could take his picture.) Now, the elders on the other hand...
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As I mentioned before, the bride wanted
Becky
hanging around (heh) at the ceremony. Beck's festive, right? Well the
mother-in-law (left - can't you just feel the waves of
disapproval rolling off her?) wanted none of it. She had instructed her henchman,
George aka "Smitty",
to take Becky down the previous night. When the wedding party arrived, Becks was
as free as a caged, rotting piratess can be, swaying in the gentle
breeze, looking down on things (right). She even had her patriotic spirit
engaged as you can tell from the pic. Can't you just hear her croaking
"Ohho say can you seeeeeeee!" But that couldn't save her from
George. (So to speak. Ok, you can't really save her at all at this
point.) Even though mos-in-law have no official standing at weddings, he knuckled
right under. Down came Becks.
That was just the beginning of the friction, though. The photographer showed up and wanted to get photos in the park (naturally - I think photographers are so desperate to stand out in their field, that they are always looking for some odd new place to take shots. They seem willing to pick any random spot they can find. I sort of wished a garbage scow would have been going by just to hear the photographer suggest putting the wedding party on it. So the photographer started shooting pics in the park and it was clear that someone (I can guess who) thought that the pirates were not appropriate for the pirate-themed wedding. We were soon asked to leave for another part of the park.
This wasn't all bad, in that it allowed us to get moving and motivated to head off to the bar where we would be safe from the elements. (While not generally been mentioned in the books like The General History of the Pyrates, pirates were afraid of no one except mothers-in-law. This sort of stands to reason, we may as well allow the omission.) Since we were heading for a high-tone and fancy to-do in Columbus, several of the pirates decided to get all dolled up in their best attire (below left). Our new location also gave us a chance to admire the rare long-eared squirrels cavorting in the outlying parts of the park (below center: well, they're rare in Southeastern Michigan, anyhow.)
Eventually the bridesmaid came over for some reason - possibly to apologize for the wedding party unceremoniously kicking us out of the park - which was when I learned about the term "Fluff and Shuffle." Below right: Rosabella explains the intricacies of how ladies go about arranging...things...inside their corset to put...forward... the best ...presentation... possible. Apparently 'Fluff and Shuffle' is a common ren-faire term, but I thought I had never heard it before and found it most amusing.
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Once fully dressed, squirrel educated, fluffed and shuffled, the sturm and drang was over and we were ready to go to the bar and drink. So off a group of us went. (The rest all decided to drive. Wimps.)