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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, September 2011 - Columbus, OH
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
Chapter 2nd: A further look at the various displays that the pirates
put together for the public; a close look at the surgeon's table, not including any
tricksy
complex interactivity like the May Journal; Eileen teaching a new Santa Maria
sprog the ropes; a piece of (alleged) art and a slightly bizarre street fair dinner, among other things.
As I mentioned on the previous page, the folks who came down to re-enact this trip really threw themselves into manning displays. Starting in May of this year, it was decided to change from having guided tours to letting people walk around at their leisure and visit various display stations on the ship manned by the normal crew members as well as we volunteer pirate crew members. If it worked well in May, it worked even better this time. As you can see from the surrounding photos, everyone got a chance to get involved, with many folks covering several stations during the weekend. At left we have Thomas of the Scioto pirates doing a bit of foam sword fencing with the first visitor on Saturday morning. Below left, Eileen, who happens to be George's sister, is explaining a cannon in the steerage to a group. Of course, George had to do something cooler, so he explained hand-held weapons on the Quarterdeck, which is where you find him below right.
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
|
 (Photo: Terry Smith) |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
In addition to serving as the cannon instructor when Mark Gist wasn't available, Michael
Bagley also worked on another hammock. I believe this was his third. Michael is forever
making hammocks when he is aboard the Santa Maria so that he can not sleep in them. Yes, you
read that right - he doesn't sleep in the hammocks he makes. He actually confessed to me that
he probably had not slept more than 10 full minutes in any of the hammocks that he had created to
date. You may be wondering why he keeps making them. Well let me tell you... I honestly have no idea. I
am wondering the very same thing. Perhaps it's like people who enjoy building
ships in a bottle. Those tiny boats in the bottle are of no use to the builder unless someone accidentally gets miniaturized like Rick
Moranis, yet the keep building them. (Hobbies, who can explain them?)
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
When we returned from the battle, I found a woman sitting at a folding table by the ship. The table containing books and
a box with a remarkably life-like peregrine falcon in it. Now I am not usually one to go over
and converse with people who appear to be selling stuff (for fear that I might guilt myself into buying it),
but I am always a bit more adventurous when dressed as a pirate. I guess it goes with the territory.
It turned out that this was Erin McCauley Burchwell, who illustrated the children's
book
Packard Takes Flight: A Bird's Eye View of Columbus. As it happens, Packard is the titular
peregrine falcon character who sitting in the box (or at least a remarkably lifelike version
of him). Packard apparently falls from his nest and encounters a number of various Columbus
landmarks during his voyage, one of which just happens to be the Santa Maria. 
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
(I know
this because the illustrator had helpfully opened the book to the very page where Packard sees the
ship.) I chatted with the illustrator for a bit and learned that she often came out to the Santa Maria
on behalf of the book.
Michael noted that he thought it was appropriate that she be here rather than the writer because, although her name was second on the book's cover, she had clearly done much of the work. I have to agree with Michael on this point. If you've ever read a children's book containing many highly illustrated pages and smatterings of text, you will most likely agree that a lot more time likely went into the drawing than the writing. If you don't buy that, consider the work of one of the most famous children's book authors: Dr. Theodore Geisel (aka. Dr. Suess). His charm seems to proceed from the fact that he took the imaginative leap of making up words for his books so that the rhymes in the book would work. (Why poets didn't think of this before is beyond me. Then again, why poetry-writing is believed to be in any way a marketable skill anywhere outside of the music industry is also beyond me. But I digress.) So it was all very jolly and she was very nice and quite willing to be photographed for the Surgeon's Journal. You should buy this book because I didn't. (You know, because I don't have kids.)
This brings us to the surgeon's display. If you have kept up with the Columbus Pirate Event Journals (and you should have, because they are awesome), you will know that I always bring the full complement of my surgical gear to Santa Maria events. I do this because 1) it's close and 2) that's really the main reason. So I had everything here and I had set it out in my usual spot in the shade of the Quarterdeck in the steerage. This makes my seventh Santa Maria pirate event presenting, a record of which I am quite proud. (OK, I really don't care about how many times I've done it, but it's always a good event and I like the opportunity to present here.)
 (Photo: Terry Smith) Explaining the dental pelican - which makes them wince nicely. |
 (Photo: Terry Smith) Why do the kids always have to touch the sharp stuff? |
Below you see the full Surgeon's Table. You may notice that it's quite crowded - even though I left several things off the table. Curiously, the item that got the most questions at this event was the madPete made bleeding stick. (See if you can find it in that mess.) I suppose people ask about it because it looks a bit like a mini-baseball bat - the sort of thing that would be given out at the local major league stadium for Mini-Bat day. However, it was actually used to pound sharp fleams into the skin when bleeding someone. (Think about that for a while and you may find yourself having a whole new degree of respect for a full-sized baseball bat.)
(Photo: Mission's Collection) The September 2011 edition of the Surgeon's Table. Did you find the bleeding stick yet? Hint: It's near the other bleeding tools. |
Now, I often do some sort of fancy interactive thing with the Surgeon's Table in the May Santa Maria Journals for reasons I know not. Maybe because I'm fresh off a four month break from writing Journals. I never do a fancy interactive thing with the Surgeon's Table in the September Santa Maria Journals and, by God, I'm not about to start. However, George's father Terry took several really good photos of my surgical gear (by which I mean photos that are nothing like that photo above which I had to spend a lot of time color and light adjusting to make the tools recognizable.) So I am going to include Terry's photos and letter the items that I have added to the table recently.
Items A: 3 porringers, used for bleeding people. See my recounting of a period explanation bloodletting to find out why there are three of them. Item B: The balance scales, now actually being balanced (from a brass rod affixed to the back of the medicine chest.) Item C: my new, period-correct razor for shaving, the acquisition of which occurred at Brigand's Grove in August. Item D: The gum fleam - used to make incisions in the gums to bleed them for dental surgery. (This actually isn't new at all, I just learned what it was for and decided to give it it's own spot with the dental equipment.) Item E: My new, non-reproduction Capital or Amputation Knife - used to cut through the flesh when performing an amputation. The silver one is my old one, which is a reproduction tool. Somehow having a real amputation knife seems more alarming, so I quite like it.
(Photo: Terry Smith) The left side of the Surgeon's Table |
 (Photo: Terry Smith) The center of the Surgeon's Table |
Most of the new stuff has already been explained above, but there another new item on the table: Item F: The Amputation Tongs. In fact, they are just regular blacksmith tongs, but I found them in Woodall's book (see the woodcut below right) and realized that they were basically just blacksmith's tongs. So I got them for a much more reasonable price than most of my other surgical equipment. (This makes me happy.) Plus it give me a chance to gross you all out with a period etching from John Woodall's book, The surgions mate. The Woodall woodcut also features Item G: two chisels which were also used to amputate fingers and toes, so I stuck them in to fill the white space. (They are also cheap to procure since I can use old carpenter's tools in place of them as well. Why not? It's probably what Woodall did.)
 (Photo: Terry Smith) The right side of the Surgeon's Table |
 (Image: John Woodall) From The surgions mate, 2nd ed. p. 413 |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
I have a few quick stories and then I promise to stop talking about my surgical stuff. (Although,
in my defense, this is called 'the Surgeon's Journal'... You know?) OK, the first isn't really a
story at all, it's just a picture of a woman and her kid in a stroller. She gave me such a nice look
in the photo, that I had to put it in here. Plus, she reminds me of someone I used to know. Maybe that's her. If so, she didn't say anything to me, which may not surprise you at all.
The other story is about a girl who came up to the table with her mother. The group before them had asked which was the best thing in my collection. I don't usually think of this stuff in that way, so I rather randomly picked the oldest piece - the 1750s bone saw that I got from England. This was still fresh in my mind when the girl and her mom appeared, so during my explanation of the amputation procedure, I told them that it was the one of my proudest possessions. The girl looked at it, looked at me and then quickly said, "You need a better hobby." I thought it was funny, so I made her pose with the saw. (I didn't say it was a really good story, but it is a story.)
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
There were several other displays going on throughout the day. Some of them I knew about like
Jennie Gist's presentation about the ship's food and daily life which you see at right. Several of the other presentations I never got close enough
to hear, nor could I figure out what they were talking about. Fortunately my ignorance of a subject is no impediment to my describing it, so you won't miss out on anything other than actual useful knowledge. (This is not unlike many liberal arts classes today.)
Below left, we find Poppa Dan regaling the kiddies with stories about what happened when he fed the Brain Mogwai after midnight. Either that or he's saying, "Kids, there ain't nothin' like a good mug of coffee!" Below center, Shannon is pointing out the Santa Maria's location on a map. Or he's reading the articles. Or he may be checking on the sports scores from yesterday's paper. Whatever it is, the two folks watching him don't look like they're buying a word of it. Below right, we find Kate advising Dan on his OSHA Workplace Rights as a pirate aboard the Santa Maria. Actually, I think she's getting ready to write something for him as that's her periodish writing desk on her lap.
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) |
 (Image: Mission's Collection) |
 (Image: Mission's Collection) |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
(Photo: Terry Smith)
After we stopped allowing the public in, Eileen and Sarah decided to have an adventure.
I don't know how recently Sarah (seen at right) started working on
the Santa Maria, but I get the impression that it was pretty recently. Eileen, being an old
hand, decided she would show Sarah the ropes. Literally. So the two of them climbed
up into the Crow's Nest. Now before you purists start complaining, I realize that this was not called the Crow's Nest in Columbus' time. I don't
actually know what it was called. Probably not the nosebleed section, although that would be
sort of cute. Then again, 'cute' isn't something you typically associate with such a thing, now, is it?
Whatever it was called (the scary high place?), Sarah had some difficulty getting around the railing
at the top to get into it. This is why you see a tiny Sarah on the ropes while Eileen is no where in
view. Of course, Eileen's been doing for quite a while. Plus,
when George (aka. The Rope Monkey), is your brother, you know you will be doing this sort of thing.
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
A girl with a silver Frisbee on her head and a pink
tu-tu
comments on
how amazing our costumes are.
This brings us to dinner. On Jennie Gist's suggestion we planned to dine at the Independent's Day Music Festival.
Michael and Kate Bagley had left to return one of their cars
back home soon after the ship closed, so someone had to wait for them. Trish and Shannon decided to remain behind while the rest of us hit the
streets of Columbus in search of food.
The festival was a sort of street festival located in the alleys and streets near the ship. I would tell you that it was filled with all sorts of weirdly-dressed and behaving folks, but that would be sort of disingenuous on my part, wouldn't it? For dinner, Mark Gist picked a alleyway cafe, the name of which I don't recall. Across the street from us was a guy spray painting gold buildings using a template on a series of three very large, gaudy pink and green canvases. Actually, it would be more truthfully said that he alternated painting gold buildings on the large, gaudy canvases with chatting with people on the street. (I would guess it was about 50% painting and 50% chatting.) He was apparently going to be paid by the job and not by the hour. (I do hope he had pre-sold those canvases because...well, you can see them below.)
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) The artist painting a gold sky over his drippy pink canvas |
 (Image: Mission's Collection) The artist chatting with some interesting people. |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
A reciprocal photo from the street fair.
We were quite popular there at the Independent's Day Music Festival. And why not? It professed
to be a celebration of the arts and our clothing has it's own artistic, albeit slavishly period,
appeal. Whatever the reason for our popularity, everywhere we went, we were asked to pose in
photos. You see one
reciprocal photo I managed to get someone to take there at right.
After we sat down at the restaurant, I decided to try and get a photo of the restaurant sign and the waitress so that I might remember where we were at and how interesting the waitresses hair was. However, the guy at the next table thought I was photographing him, so he posed. Then he said, "Why are you taking photos of me, I should be getting photos of you!" So he came over to our table and had his friends take his photo. (I didn't get a reciprocal photo that time. Sorry.) Even sitting at our ringside tables brought people forth to pose with us. One girl even asked permission to sit in Mark Gist's lap, the result of which you can see below right. (There was no way I was going to miss getting the reciprocal photo that time.)
 (Photo: Mission's Collection) The guy at the next table. |
 (Image: Mission's Collection) The reason you really need to participate in pirate re-enacting if you're a guy |
(Photo: Mission's Collection)
After finishing our dinner (which was quite good), we wandered around looking for a bit until Mark
suggested that it would be prudent to get back to the ship so that Michael, Kate, Shannon and Trish
weren't stuck there. As it happened, they had closed the gangplank (which I learned is automated)
and gone foraging at the Festival. Arriving back soon after we did with the key to the automated
gangplank, they told us similar stories about being asked to pose for many photographs.
Shannon had one girl grab him in particular for a shot. Then she grabbed his prosthetic hook, looked at it and said, "I don't see a ring on that hook." Very forthcoming girls, these Independent Artist festival goers were.
(Photo: Mission)
Once we all reassembled, Trish brought out several bottles of wine. Michael brought forth a bottle
of a wine he had told me about on Friday night called Renato Ratti. It seems he had gotten a bottle
of it somewhere in his travels a year or so ago and had been looking for it ever since. None of the
local wineries in his area seemed to stock it and he eventually gave up on finding it. One day when
he and Kate were in a local store, she suggested he ask about the wine, which he could only identify
as "the bottle with the soldier on it." The checkout clerk shrugged her shoulders, but a
guy stocking bottles heard him and said, "I know exactly what you're talking about!" He
produced the bottle and Michael bought it. It was quite good. Plus now that it's mentioned in the
Surgeon's Journal, he will always have a source for the name of the wine...if he can remember which
Journal and which page in the Journal. (Good luck, Michael! There's enough of them now that I can't
remember what's where anymore!)
After a couple drinks, the length of the day began to weigh on me, so I bid everyone adieu and headed back for the Hyatt. It was a pleasant evening.