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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, May 2010 - Columbus, OH
Epilogue Revealing what random things remain to be told and shown (as found in the general Columbus 2010 photo file folder on Mission's computer), gracias to the photographers and...well, that's about it, really. Do you need more? Too bad, I'm tired of writing. Off to the text and photos with you.
Karen Arnold
(Photo: Poppa)
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First I must thank the photographers, because this would otherwise be nothing but a lot of personal reflections separated by bad jokes and a song parody*. So thanks are due to those you will find below. (Note: the photos of the people are hot-linked to their albums. *Bob Dylan somehow found out about this account, read the previous page and was heard to say, "Rhyming 'hacked' with 'Zach'? Who told this Mission guy he could write song lyrics anyway?" |
Kate & Mike
(Photo: Mission)
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Poppa Ratsey
(Photo: Karen)
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Trish
(Photo: Poppa)
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Count d'Booty
(Photo: Bagley's)
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Joshua
(Photo: Karen)
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Mission
(Photo: Mission)
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Rosabella
(Photo: Poppa)
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The Thatchers
(Photo: Karen)
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I was going to be done with the still life photos of the ship after the previous page, but there were several other photos of the details of the Santa Maria taken that I thought were very evocative of the ship. These are things that make re-enactment sites like this special and even contain bits and pieces of history lessons.
(Photo: Poppa Ratsey)
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
So let's begin with a few neat ship photos.
Left: A very nice picture of the Santa Maria, looking like she's being readied for sail. (She can't be, but it looks nice, don't it?)
Right:The Santa Maria dedication plaque. You know, I've never even seen it!
Below are photos of the upper deck cabins of the Santa Maria. The open door leads to the captain's quarters, shown at right. Note that Columbus probably wasn't quite this much of a slob; the clean-up from the pirates who slept in the captain's quarters the night before doesn't appear to have been completed yet.
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Count d'Booty)
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(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
Left: Into the hold! It looks like the start
of a horror movie, doesn't it? The kind where you tell the main
character not to go down or the purple-eyed monster will get them.
Right: A really cool shot of the view from the hold.
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Count d'Booty)
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(Photo: the infamous 'Bob with Signs' photo shoot that I had
no idea
even existed before searching for a picture of Bob for this
stupid joke.)
Above we have views of the aft ('back' for you lubbers)
of the ship. It's a nice, if slightly claustrophobic, area with crates, barrels,
cannon and such. Above right
is the ship's glass, used to keep time for
watches and such.
Behind it is some kind of song or prayer in Spanish, no doubt written by one of Bob Dylan's ancestors. I have been taking Spanish classes as some of you know, so I thought I'd try to translate it for you...
"Old man sailin' in a dinghy boat - Down there
Old man down is baitin' a hook - On there
Gonna pull man down on a suckling hook
Gonna pull man into the suckling brook - Oh yeah!"
Huh. Maybe my translation skills aren't as good as I thought. Either that or that is one apple suckling tree of a song.
(Photo: Count d'Booty)
(Photo: a Srurfatively Smurfy site)
Left: George giving a tour, apparently being unaware that the
purple-eyed monsters from the scary hold have gotten free and are about to
attack the tourists. (He should really pay more attention.)
Right: George as Saddy Smurf - for when tourists get eaten by purple- eyed worms.
Speaking of stuffed animals, there were many of them present. Lately there seems to be some sort of pandemic stuffed animal outbreak at the pyrate re-enactments. If you plan on attending the Fall Talk Like a Pirate event on the Santa Maria, you may want to get yourself inoculated.
We begin with Lob; we can't hardly talk about stuffed animals at events without mentioning Lob. Granted, Lob has already been mentioned, but it is impossible for you to get enough of him. The government recommended daily allowance of Lob photographs is actually 17, so you're probably running behind. Let's fix that.
(Photo: Trish)
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(Photo: Trish)
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Above left: Jennie Gist holds Lob to her bosom. Lob seems to be lucky that way. Sometimes. Lob also tempts danger with his usual savoir fare by riding a cannon. I was trying to find a photo of him yelling down the barrel, but then I remembered he is a boy stuffed monkey. Something spooked him and he scurried into the safety of cannon barrel (below left). I would have thought that the prick would have been poking him, but he sure looks content, doesn't he? Fortunately Lob managed to make contact with the mothership, who sent him a neato-keen flying saucer for the return trip home (below right). Yep, you guessed it, Lob is actually an alien monkey.
(Photo: Trish)
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(Photo: Trish)
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(Photo: Thatchers)
Otter made the trip again this year, looking notably more ragged than
last year (where I mistakenly identified him as a ferret.) It makes you
wonder what Alex Thatcher did to him. Alex was not at the event because
he had a date of some sort back home. This is to be expected. Boys
are interested in pirates from about the age of 7 or 8 to...maybe 13.
Piracy is replaced by an interest in mating, causing it to go dormant in
most boys until they hit their 30s. Kate Bagley took a particular
interest in finding new ways to abuse poor Otter so that she could take photos
and send them to Alex's phone. (The only one of which I found is at
right. Off with his raggedy head!) Her example resulted in several
'torturing Otter' shots (below left) Fearing for his
pelt, Otter took refuge on Poppa Ratsey's head (below right.)
(Photo: Rosabella)
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(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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Ultimately, Otter found a better safety spot in Zach's lap (below left). Ryan offered added protection to Otter by climbing on Zach's back. (Zach's back!) In addition to photos of Lob and Otter, there were some other stuffed animals in the park. You'll recall that the ship's surgeon was practically chained to the ship while all the rest of the pirates were cavorting in the park, so I didn't catch the names of these other fluff-filled critters. (Please ignore the fact that I actually appear in one of the photos, effectively contradicting that last statement.) Below center, Kate holds some frighteningly cheerfully colored little bear that I can only hope belonged to one of the babies. Below right, Constance Thatcher revealing the latest in period women's head ware: an oddly flat puppy. Bill Murray and George appear in the background, completely oblivious to this. (They were obviously distracted by the Baked Lays.)
(Photo: Poppa Ratsey)
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(Photo: Thatchers)
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(Photo: Thatchers)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
(Photo: Stolen by someone with the Stripes DVD.)
Speaking of Bill, let's look at this
thing in the cold light of day. At left,
we have your ship's surgeon. At right, we have Bill.
Does anyone see a resemblance? Or what? As noted, several girls in the Columbus bars
seem to believe so. Ivan Henry said "Maybe from the nose down..."
but he also thinks the Surgeon's Journals are my physical resistance to
metaphysical oblivion, so I'm not sure we can trust him. You be the judge.
Now for some food. I used to know a girl who thought pictures of people eating were disgusting. On the other hand, Michael Bagley seems to think they actually are interesting based on the number of them he took. I guess he never dated the girl I knew. That would have had unfortunate repercussions. However, these photos form a pattern and I certainly can't resist patterns, so here you are. The first pic below is Andrew Thatcher chowing on his cake. Then we have Trish, followed by your author (who is eating cake and not charcoal out of that big bag beside him), and finally Connie Thatcher and Callenish Gunner.
(Photo: Bagleys)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
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You know how people sometimes take a dumb idea way too far? I don't. Continuing with Michael's pictures of people eating, below are Mark Gist, a kid-frighteningly large photo of Shannon and Ivan Henry trying to sneak some of Jay's cake on the sly. (Now wasn't that fun? Who cares what you think?)
(Photo: Bagleys)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
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 (Photo: Bagleys) |
(Photo: Poppa Ratsey)
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(Photo: Poppa Ratsey)
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Above left: Not what you want to see when you're on a ship. Above right: Where is the exterminator when you need him?
An assortment of the Family Thatcher photos. Below left we have Connie, who is copying the famous Georges Seurat painting Woman with a Cell Phone. Below center is Ryan as Huck Finn. Finally, below right we have Silas as some guy inventing a weird new dance. (Hey, don't ask me, I just happened to be standing there.)
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Thatchers)
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Below left are Andrew Thatcher and Hamish. You may be wondering "So what?" but I mostly put it in because I wanted to tell a story about Hamish. At one point, he took a flying leap at the side of the play pen and tipped it over, spilling him out onto the sidewalk. All you protective parents reading this may be thinking this sounds horrific, but Salty assured me that he does that on purpose so he can get out. I think that makes him clever, rather than danger-prone. In fact, it's not unlike what the crew did to the Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Wit's End. A real pirate, that Hamish. Below right, we have Trish's son David in his sleeping bag on the top deck (or whatever it's called). This is a picture that only a mother could love because I am certain David will be horrified when he sees it. (Worse, it's on the web and being talked about where everyone can see it.) Trish, be certain to show this to his girlfriend if he has one. He'll really appreciate that.
(Photo: Bagleys)
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 (Photo: Trish) |
And now, let's talk about Josh. Below left we find Joshua with some of his fans. Joshua is a country music recording artist. (You can find out more about Joshua Bradshaw and his music here) Because of this, women follow him around, wearing pink wigs and handing their cameras to passers by so that they have photos for their scrap books. (Why pink? Why not?) Below right is Karen Jones Arnold with Joshua. They make a really nice couple, don't you think?
(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Karen Jones Arnold)
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(Photo: Bagleys)
(Photo: Gargamel's Nightmares )
And that brings us to the end, which for some reason seems to require the
closure of one of my idiotic running jokes from the text.
We pretty much covered the Bob Dylan stuff, so there's no sense in dragging that up again. Lob and Otter have gotten their due, so let's check that one off as finished. I can't see the Bill Murray stuff going any further.
So we're left with George and the righteous Smurf material. This is an actual pirate Smurf which you will find by searching the web. (Why you would want to do that, I just don't know.) Note that there is a variant pirate Smurf with a yellow belt for all you collectors. OK, that's enough of that.
November, 2011: When this site was upgraded to the new format, the old title graphics were replaced. Not wanting to throw away all the work that went into them, I decided to put them at the bottom of the Epilogue pages. Below you have the previous title graphic, containing a lovely photo of the Santa Maria taken by Karen Jones Arnold.
