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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, September 2012 - Columbus, OH

Photo: Mark Gist
Shafts of light shining though the deck in the smoke from the stove Chapter 3rd: Sunday morning aboard the Santa Maria. Of Zach and his story-telling beard; Of Elizabeth and embroidery; Of Zeke, spears (yes, I said spears) and candy fangs; Of Trudi Dufrense - a profile; Another brief look at the displays, just in case we missed anything the first time and Of rolling charges in preparation for the Sunday battle.

Sunday was, as always, time to check out of the hotel and wheel Phydeaux, my rolly bag, through the streets of Columbus on my way to our free parking space. Was it worth saving the parking money? Always! Plus this allowed me to stop at Tim Horton's, located conveniently along the route, to get an egg and cheese wrap and a coffee. Mmm.

Photo: Mark Gist
Strike a pose there's nothing
to it. Vogue. After docking Phydeaux in the truck , I went down to the park in front of the ship where I was greeted by Zach in his story-telling beard. I had been hearing about the story-telling beard for weeks before the event. I was told that Zach had even been brushing up on his stories so that he could do the story-telling beard justice when he saw me. And here it was. Except it wasn't story-telling.

I hope I've managed to put it across that Zach is about as far from being shy as it is possible to be. The kid's a born actor, I'm almost sure of it. Heck, just look at these photos of him in the story-telling beard. Yet, when it came time to do the beard justice for Mission, as had been promoted, the well seemed to go dry. Zach clammed up.

I asked Trudi about the origins of the story-telling beard and she said it had one day just appeared in the costume chest. Costume chest? It seems their house has a large trunk that was full of costumes that the kids can wear when the mood strikes them. I can imagine that Zach was a regular visitor to the trunk. However, no one seems to know where the beard came from and no one wanted to guess. Zach was apparently the creative genius who christened it the story-telling beard as he told stories whenever he was wearing it. Except for now.

Photo: Dolphin Danie
Zach looking sage. And alarmed. Curious about the costume chest, I asked what else was in it and Trudi said there was just about everything. (Maybe all the other stuff got together and spontaneously generated the story-telling beard. It certainly looked like something that had been spontaneously generated, especially if the rest of the costumes had had a wild night out, partying until dawn.)

Trudi said her favorite Zach costume creation was the closet monster. Zach had found a pair of adult-sized green tights, pulled them up to his neck and put on some sort of bizarre wig and sat in the closet dressed like that until someone opened the closet door. Then he got them, probably by yelling that he was the closet monster or some such thing. (Sitting in a closet with tights up to your neck for a gag reveals a lot of patience for a little kid to have.)

I finally did get a story out of Zach about King George's medical treatments which he had seen on something called Horrible Histories on YouTube. The funniest part of the whole thing is that, after hearing about this for weeks, he told it sotto voce, like a shy wallflower being forced to perform against his will. I kept thinking of the crazy time I had listening to Zach's almost random recounting of the adventures of Chicken Joe from the the movie Surf's Up at the Michigan Pirate Festival and wondered why my presence now was so dampening. (Don't answer that.)

Photo: Dolphin Danie
Elizabeth working on her embroidery The first thing I saw when I actually boarded the Santa Maria was Elizabeth Dufrense embroidering. Embroidery is one of those skills that amazes me because I recognize that I have neither the patience nor the manual dexterity to do such a thing. Build a velociraptor? No problem. Sketch bear cubs? Can do. Latch hook a rug of the Imperial Emblem? You bet'cha. But embroidery is too precise for my ken.

So I was fascinated to get photos of this, including one daring one from behind. (I don't know if Elizabeth was just so engrossed in her work or if she was just being polite and pretending not to notice me lumbering around knocking about all the junk we had stowed there.)

I commented to Trudi on how different Elizabeth and Danie were, noting that Elizabeth seemed more girly to me. She laughed and said she remembered when Danie was three and Elizabeth two, a 6 year old boy was harassing Danie - who wouldn't do anything about it - so Elizabeth bloodied his nose for him. At two years old! (So both Elizabeth and Danie are so cool, in case you haven't been keeping track.)

Photo: Mission Elizabeth

Photo: Mission Embroidering

Photo: Mission Embroidery over shoulder

Photo: Mission The dynamic duo contemplate their situation

Photo: stolen
"Him say Zeke what?" Those of you who read my last Surgeon's Journal for the Michigan Pirate Festival may recall that I had noticed a penchant for favored animals among the Dufrense children. Danie's animal familiar is the Dolphin and Zach's is the turtle. I had mused then on what the other's familiars were. As it happens, Elizabeth's favorite animal turned out to be the horse, which, again, strikes me as being a very feminine choice, bloodied noses aside. Zeke's favorite animal has to be the Tazmanian Devil. Actually, I believe he told me what it was and I don't remember. Taz boy fits better.

Photo: Mission
Ruth poses with Scrofia for me Ruth's favorite animal turned out to be the pig. So I naturally had to get a photo of her with Scrofia. I'm not entirely sure that Ruth recognized Scrofia as a pig - he is definitely not cute in a Babe sort of way... in fact, he's rather grotesque when you study him. (This, naturally, is why I like him.) But she humored me and sat nicely for the photo.

Ruth then asked me what my favorite animal, which seems like a logical and pretty astute question given that I had been quizzing each of them about their favorite animals.

However, I actually didn't have an answer to that. I sort of like all small animals in a way. I am particularly fond of mammals - cats, mice, rabbits, goats, stoats and so forth, but I also like birds, spiders and certain reptiles. (Not including lawyers, a reptile I can't abide at any price.)

Photo: Mission
Three lorikeets. They'd make a good subject for art, no? However, the first thing that came to my mind was hamsters. I got my first hamster when I was 10 or 11 and then had them pretty much consistently until I was 17 or so. I haven't had one since because hamsters tend to get stinky when you don't clean their cages for a week and the whole thing just seems like too much trouble. So that clearly can't be my favorite animal despite what I told her.

What I should have said was lorikeets. Not that I have a lorikeet, or have ever actually seen a real lorikeet, but because I had been reading about them in the book Tales of the South Pacific the evening before. I had looked them up on Google image search to see what Michener was talking about in his book. I was so impressed that I suggested to Danie that she draw one. (Actually, I want to draw one, but I'm usually too busy writing Surgeon's Journals to do that, so I figured I'd make Danie my proxy. She'd rather draw dragons, though.)

Photo: Mission
Zeke & pike Then there were the adventures of Zeke with one of the ship's pikes. The pikes are soft tipped things given to the kids during the battle to allow them to defend the ship against the pirates. When Zeke boarded, he went to the front of the ship and fished one out
Photo: Mission
Zeke presents so that he could play with it. (Rambunctious is a word I would use to describe Zeke.) This led somehow to Zeke spearing his dad, Dennis, which, if you look closely at the photo of this below left, you'll see his mom laughing!

So that's what happens when you give Zeke a pike. Personally, I suggest the Dufrenses pack Zeke off to the event Searle's Sack of St. Augustine where he, like me, will learn that there a lot of formal commands that go with properly handling a pike, most of which he will almost immediately forget. Then he can get on with his life.

From somewhere or another Zach got hold of some candy corn and started wearing them like vampire fangs. Zeke almost immediately followed suit as you see below right. (I can see Zach coming up with all sorts of bizarre ideas like this and getting Zeke to participate in them.) Mark Gist said he used to do that as a kid, too. I don't know why, but it had never occurred to me to do that as a kid. (And yet there was a point in my life where I actually hoped and wished that my canines would grow out so that I could look like a vampire.)

Photo: Mission Zeke spears dad while Trudi looks on approvingly

Photo: The Dufrenses Zach mugging with his candy fangs

Photo: The Dufrenses Zeke - The Candy Count! Mu-ha-ha!

Now the apples usually don't fall far from the tree which brings us to Trudi. (Not that Trudi is a tree or anything. As far as I know.) I told her I wanted to do a profile of her in this Journal and she explained that she
Photo: Dolphin Danie
Trudi and Alexander was not that interesting. In fact, I find that if you can get them to open up a bit, the people who do not think they are that interesting are often far more interesting than those who think they are interesting.

Trudi is one of those rare people who were not interested much in pirates until she started reenacting. She explained that once she joined the Brethren of the Great Lakes she "found the history was very unique, important and not often talked about or taught to anybody. I tend to like the underdogs of life and those unique things most people don't know about."

One of the things I already knew about Trudi was that she publishes magazines. I knew this because I had written an article for the slick pirate magazine she and her kids put together for the Michigan Pirate Festival last month. Although she only used a few paragraphs of my article for the pirate magazine, I was most impressed with the magazine itself. It looked very professional. She had mentioned some other magazines they had put together and it turned out that it was all in aid of a home schooling magazine project they did called "Lend Me Your Pen."

Photo: Pirated
Dave Longaberger with his basket. (Admit it. You want a house like that.) I also found out this weekend that Trudi belonged to a sculpting group, which sort of struck me. (I was trying to imagine what form a sculpting group might take. I asked her, but she never gave me a straight answer on that one.) So I asked about sculpting, which she said she mostly did with Sculpey, although she hadn't done much recently.

Trudi went on to explain that she was interested in many different art forms including "drawing, sculpting, sewing, digital art, paper crafting ...basketweaving (Yeah, don't laugh. I'm good at it! LOL!!)." I couldn't imagine why anyone would laugh at basket weaving. I've done a bit of it myself, although I wouldn't say I was good at it. Dave Longaberger didn't laugh at basket weaving and look where it took him! She also makes custom-dressed historical period bears, which interested me greatly and gave me an idea for a project.

One of the things I usually ask my profile subjects is if there's anything interesting about them that I didn't ask about. After demurring, Trudi explained, "I guess to sum me up ... I am a Jack of all Trades, master of none (which is why my character name is Jacqueline!!) The biggest fascinating thing (for me anyhow) is the fact that my memory is so random, I never know what will stick! It usually surprises even me!" Readers may recognize this very trait in the Journal author.

Photo: Mission Trudi with part of her family

Photo: Dolphin Danie Trudi with Elizabeth and Zach giving us the Sting nose rub - or something..

Photo: Snatched
Now, about that last picture above.

I included it specifically so I could show just how random my memory is. I have no idea what the actual significance of the image is, but it reminded me almost immediately of the movie The Sting. (This is mention #2 for The Sting in as many months. What can I say? It's one of my five favorite movies.) Anyhow, for those who haven't seen it, the main con man character, Henry Gondorff, uses that to subtly indicate that the con is afoot to his fellow con men. (Seen below left.)

That lead me to think of another favorite movie of mine (although not a top five) called Up the Creek wherein the lead character - Bob McGraw ("The Bob McGraw.") - who is also something of a con man), uses that gesture to indicate that he is in position to one of his coconspirators, Gonzer. Gonzer takes this to mean he has snot in his nose, so he picks it and thanks McGraw.

Yeah, that's an awfullllllly long way to explain a visual joke. Sorry. I had to do it, though, because you never know when I may get another chance to include a reference to Up the Creek in these Journals. (I love the Warner Brothers sensibilities of this movie. Plus I'm a fan of Tim Matheson, whom I think is vastly underrated. I wish they'd release it on DVD for me.)

Photo: Assembled by Mission using really crappy screen captures

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Photo: Mission
Jennie Gist at the Kid's Table with a customer
I wanted to take a moment to briefly revisit some of the displays as they appeared on Sunday. You might think that this is just an excuse to put more photos of the surgeon's table in the Journal. You could be right at that.

Actually, it's just that I have some photos of me at my table in my other Bagley Original togs and I wanted to be sure and include them for contrast. Or something.

Photo: Mission
Richard and Bryan chatting
We start with the Kid's Table. Jennie Gist was again manning it at least part of the time as you see here. You may also notice that Richard of Put-in-Bay appears in the photo. Richard always has some sort of whisky or bourbon tasting event that he always goes to during this weekend in Kentucky. He tries to stop in at our event on the way back since it's sort of on the way. It's always nice to see him.

This brings us back to my table. In all honesty, the reason there are so many photos of this is that I gave my camera to Dennis Dufrense to take a photo of something or another and he decided to take a whole bunch of them. (There
Photo: Dennis Dufrense
Mission with that dental pelican again
were at least eight of me presenting and I trimmed it down to two. (See at left and below left.) My tendency as a photographer is to be sparing with photos of a single occurance. My philosophy is that if whatever I am trying to capture doesn't come out well, I can always spend hours trying to fix it. This is because I don't want to spend extra time sifting though a bunch of photos of the same thing. (Which takes at least 2 minutes.)

There was also a recip photo opportunity on Sunday - the only one I had at the surgeon's table. It was with a family. I believe the father had something to do with medicine which is why they wanted to get a photo. Then the daughter agreed to be in one as well. I always like to post photos of my with attractive young girls in recip photos because it seems to astound Jim Shipley that I could manage to get in photos with so many of them. He thinks I have some magical power or something (and that's a myth I want to perpetuate.)

Photo: Dennis Dufrense Mission explaining surgery

Photo: Mission's Camera A recip photo with mom and pop

Photo: Mission's Camera ...and one with their daughter for Jim.

Jennie again brought over lunch in the early afternoon. Today we had a really good vegetable stew. Well, I had vegetable stew. I can't say what the carnivores had. Danie got some really neat photos of lunch, so I thought I'd throw them in here for your enjoyment.

Photo: Dolphin Danie One close up of the provender supplied for lunch

Photo: Dolphin Danie Another close up of lunch

Photo: Dennis Dufrense
Dan and Mark roll charges Dan Needham and Mark Gist appeared in the afternoon near the little red chest that sits opposite my table. The chest has a nice flat top, so it's often used to set stuff on. Today the stuff being set upon it was black powder charges. They were preparing for the battle by rolling the charges required for black powder hand and deck guns.

Nothing happened to be happening at the surgeon's station, so I wandered over to watch them work. (I am good at watching people work.) Dan was rolling the paper cartridges that are used for the muskets and hand weapons. Mark was rolling charges for the brass deck gun which is mounted in the front of the Green Black Sheep boat. That's usually my weapon.

It wasn't all that hard to do, really. First he took a piece of aluminum foil and formed it around the end of the rammer. (Since it it used to ram the load, you know it's about the right size to make the charge. Clever, huh?) Then he would measure powder into an old plastic film cannister and pour it into the foil tube. (Note to the kids: you'll never have seen a film cannister and won't know what the heck I'm talking about. Don't worry about it. Much.) Then he would form the loose end of the foil around the black powder in the foil tube. Simple. I wanted to try it, but I wasn't sure enough to handle the black powder, so I just rolled a couple of paper cartridges which Dan then filled with black powder. Now we were ready for battle!

Photo: Dennis Dufrense Mission watches charge rolling

Photo: Dennis Deck gun foil roll

Photo: Dennis Adding powder

Photo: Dennis Forming charge

Photo: Dennis Mission trying

 

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