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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion/ Pirates in Paradise Celebration
Nov/Dec 2011 - Key West, FL
Chapter 8th: The induction of several folks into the Order of St. Barbara aka. the swiping of the stinky sponge ceremony; The surgeon returns to his digs; Learning about Zak, the 16 year old writer and pirate aficionado; How the group photo interfered with the surgeon's dinner plans; Dining out at a familiar spot; Returning to the fort and having a minor adventure with Edward O'Keefe and the pathetic search for drinks.
Photo: Maria De Los Angeles
Soon after the battle, the "Induction into the Order of St. Barbara" began. This is basically just the
"Swiping of the Stinky Sponge Over a Part of Someone's Anatomy Ceremony" totted up in the last few years with that
fancy title. I suspect Gareth had something to do with making it sound formal and important when it is actually
just a re-enactor version of frat hazing.
The minute I saw the line-up of folks surrounded by a crowd, I zipped over to see what was going on. I had a special interest in the ceremony this year because, as you regular readers know, Michael Bagley had not been treated to this pleasure despite the fact that he had fired his first cannon at Put-in-Bay. He had confided to me a few months ago that he didn't want to be stinky sponged in front too many people. Well, we couldn't have that wish come true - I was stinky sponged at PiP in 2007, after all! So I started making loud noises about his being left out. Stynky sensed that Michael didn't want to be stinky sponged and - I suspect that this is yet another example of why Stynky and I are friends - picked up the cry with me. Michael gave in and got in line. You can see the results below.
Photo: Beowulf Zak revelling (?) in the stinky sponge |
Photo: Mission Michael Bagley is finally sponged |
Photo: Maria De Los AngelesKeith - forehead sponging! |
Photo: Maria
Sherry Walp. Er... |
Photo: Maria De Los Angeles
Keith guards a cannon
Keith aka Lon Johnson and I walked back from the battlefield together on Sunday. He had several scars on his faced,
so I joked that he was a good example of some of my surgical skills. He's an imposing-looking fellow with his bristly
black beard. He's a member of the Bloody Historical group out of New Jersey. He's
been doing pirate re-enacting with his wife Cindi (Molly) for the past five years. He told me his fascination with the sea started in his childhood when he started reading about whaling history. As he grew up,
he started getting interested in piracy. Like many folks who get into pirate re-enacting, he started out in more
fantasy-pirate garb and then began moving towards historically accurate portrayals. He works leather and does
carpentry to create period items using "mostly period correct tools" he's been collecting.
Photo: Beowulf
Keith rolling charges. Would you want
to make this fellow mad?
I contacted him via Facebook and he wrote out Lon's history for me. (Note: for those of you who want an accurate
character
history in a Journal, this is about the only way it's getting in there as there is almost no hope of me remembering it
otherwise.) He wrote:
"[I was]" a young Scottish Lad who came from a troubled family in Glasgow. I ran away from home in my teens,
to the town of Argyle. Worked on some fishing boats, and tiring of that, stowed away on a vessel to Boston in the
Americas. I worked as a carpenter's apprentice, but the call of the sea
Photo: Mission
Molly and some of her surgical tools
was strong. I tried my hand at whaling for
a while, but soon discovered that Piracy was a bit more lucrative. Working my way through several crews, I found
myself in a position to have my own ship, the Devils Raven. During a severe Nor'easter off Cape Cod, I lost my ship
and all her crew except for Molly the Ship's Surgeon and the Ship's dog Jethro. We clung to wreckage until we were
picked up by the Valhalla. We sailed with them for almost three years and then moved on to start up a fresh crew."
His wife Molly was the surgeon I mentioned when I was profiling Sebastian Nodding. (You may remember her as the girl borrowing a cup of bandages.) She was also the person who won the clyster syringe I put up for auction! Keith told me he was amazed that no one else tried to get the clyster syringe." I would have paid a lot more for it but the bidding stopped. We are accumulating more items all the time." That is actually how I got the collection of surgical junk I have. As I told Keith, I started out with six surgical tools at Pirates in Paradise in 2007… and still managed to do a presentation! Fair sailing in the surgical waters, Molly!
Photo: Mission
Back in the fort I returned to my surgeon's table to resume explaining my tools and period surgical procedures.
Who should I find when I arrived at
the surgeon's table? My old friend Captain R. Hood! Yes, the tradition of people listening to the surgeon present
the same operation three hundred times and then pitching in to do it for him when he wanders away continues! This
wouldn't bother me quite as much if they didn't do it better than me...
After I took over operations (heh), several folks from the battle came up to claim they had wounds. They saw that I was holding forth on my topic without wounds to heal and decided not to interrupt me. (Notice that I am not putting another stupid "dodging the bullet" comment in here. Oh, wait...)
Photo: Mission
I managed to sit down and talk with Zak. He is 16 years old and appears to be quite intelligent and very well
informed. He is writing a historical fiction book set during
the Golden Age of Piracy centering on a
group of teens who have to fend for themselves on the high seas. It has a moral component that focuses on working together and finding win/win solutions to the
various problems the teens encounter as they travel. The historical fiction aspect occurs as they meet several historical pirates during
their journey.
Zak's mom told me he had been writing this book since he was 11 years old. He explained that he has about 300,000 words written and is in the middle of revising parts of the book to make it more seamless. (This is in stark contrast to the way the Surgeon's Journals are written. In fact, I would say they are more seamy than seamless. They are rarely re-written. Some people say they're hardly written at all. But I digress...)
Photo: DB Couper
Zak has had several adventures while writing his book, which he measures by word count. (Seriously.) When he
reached 100,000 words, he went on board the
HMS Surprise. At 200,000 words he took a cruise in
honor of Patrick O'Brien (writer of the Master and Commander book series.) Zak explained that it was attended by
several historians, which was why he wanted to go on the cruise.
During a very formal dinner aboard the cruise, he sat with a man and woman he didn't know. After explaining his book, the story line and the values embedded in the story the woman asked him several questions. At the end of the evening, she gave him her business card and told him to contact her once the story was complete. She was from Simon & Schuster!
I told him a little about my Sea Surgeon's book, which hasn't, technically, been started yet. He encouraged me to get started and stop researching the stupid topic. (OK, he didn't put it like that exactly.) I have no doubt that Simon and Schuster would be very interested in my book if it ever gets finished. (It'll probably be just the right height to make that uneven table level.)
I had a near brush with fame while I was talking with Zak, but I managed to avoid it. I had tried so hard to pin Zak down long enough to have a conversation with him that when Michelle appeared dragging someone behind her hollering at me in the middle of it, I told her I was busy.
The dragee turned out to be Maria De Los Angeles, a freelance reporter who Diosa was running through something she called the "12 Steps to Become a Pirate" program. (Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but it's Diosa. You do not disagree with her and win.) When Diosa saw me, she decided to add being treated by the surgeon as a step, but I neatly avoid that as explained.
Photo: Maria De Los Angles
Maria Aboard the Wolf shooting Braze's Gun (Doesn't Braze look like a proud father here?)
Maria has
been taking advice from Diosa and has even decided that she makes for a good mentor! (Yeah, I still know
what you're thinking, but it's Diosa. You do not disagree with her and win.)
Maria fell in love with the whole pirate re-enactor gig when Braze put his blunderbuss in her hands and let her fire it. You can read Maria's (very witty) account of her going through the 12 Steps to Become a Pirate in her "sex and the beach" column.
Before moving along and leaving my surgeon role behind, I do want to give a shout out to the Town Criers. Each crew was assigned the job of Town Crier once during the weekend. The crier was told to announce upcoming happenings. To get attention, the Crier was given a large bell, which seems like incentive enough to do the job to me. Although I usually set up early and did presentations throughout the day, I was listed on the schedule for 3:00pm. I did notice that traffic was stronger during my scheduled hours, thanks in no small part to these folks. Cheers to them!
Photo: Caribbean Pearl
Lily filling the town crier's shoes |
Photo: Mission Cutter crying to the town (my bike's behind him.) |
Photo: Mission Ashley Mojica ringing the bell. |
Five o'clock rolled around and I decided to pack all my surgeon's gear in my old kit box. (And smile! Smile! Smile!)
Photo: Maria De Los Angles
See if you can find Lob in this photo.
With that accomplished (mainly to reach for that last stupid joke), I went in search of Stynky and Michael. We had plans
for dinner - very vague plans.
Our dinner plans were interrupted by the group photo, however. The photo was scheduled for 5:15, which means it would start resembling an organized venture about 5:30. Sure enough people started moving towards the designated group photo area about 5:20.
Once everyone was in place, it only took about 10 minutes to complete, which has to be a PiP record. (At least from my experience. It usually takes at least a half hour.) DB Couper was the primary photographer with reporter Maria De Los Angeles and several assorted tourists serving as back-up photographers. Lob was also in the photo as a Pub Member. Or a participant of the group. Or a pirate monkey. Or whatever the hell you want to call him. He was there.
Photo: Mission
Stynky's car going to the Rum Barrel
With that over, Stynky, Michael and I headed out for dinner on the town. Of course, no trip to Key West
can be complete without a trip to the Rum Barrel, where someone told me they have good corn and clam chowder!
Michael had actually been pulling for another restaurant so that his weekend Key West experience would have a
little dining variety, but Stynky's Honda Civic has now been trained to automatically head for the Rum Barrel.
Photo: Mission
A toast! "Here's to beer!" (We'd have toasted Stynky's birthday if he'd told us.)
We sat on the rooftop patio and relaxed. (Stynky had tried to get us on the rooftop for our daily brunch outings,
but they wouldn't let him do it. I used to have such faith in his ability to cajole and convince people...)
I tried to order Blue Moon beer, which I have liked since Michael first bought me one in Columbus in 2009, but they didn't have it. I decided to try the Lobster Pot Pie. For those who are curious, it was quite good and not too filling. (Being a pot pie, I figured it would be pretty heavy fare. I was wrong. It was just right; the Rum Barrel scores high marks for portion size in my book.)
We sat around and talked about all manner of things from old computers to video
games to re-enacting to the Pyracy Pub to F-Troop.
Photo: Someone, somewhere
Photo: Stynky Tudor's photos
F-Troop came up because we were talking about Jack and Brig, whose last name is Permenter. I made some reference to
Captain Parmenter from the F-Troop series that was so amazingly funny that I can't remember it. Michael didn't get
it. It turns out that he has never seen F-Troop!
This is yet another one of the harsh conditions that come with growing up in Canada. I know Michael well and I suggested that upon returning home, he sally forth and procure a copy because we share a similarly warped sense of humor. The show only ran two seasons (a black and white first season and a color second season), yet it's one of the goofiest comedies I can think of, reminding me strongly of old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Stynky interjected that several people had accused him of stealing his hat from Agarn which leads us almost inevitably to the photo comparison above.
Photo: Mission
A fire truck, seen from the roof cafe of the Rum Barrel
. You
may wonder what this has to do with the story. You are
probably not alone. (I like fire trucks.)
Michael saved Canada from this humor blunder by telling us the story of the Great Canadian Wallpaper Festival, which
was written by a Viking era re-enactor called Tempus Peregrinator. I would re-tell the whole thing here, but it is a
bit long and convoluted and I already write enough long and convoluted stuff that borrowing more would seem like unfair punishment of you readers.
Still, I can't resist reprinting a little bit of it. "...there were many excellent suggestions for further story embellishment. Probably the most famous (or infamous) came from Kess, who came up with the idea of snow ants. Snow ants, which are of course snow white, and travel in huge packs, are quite invisible against the snow. Usually, the only way to know they're nearby is when moose disappear in a puff of white with a little spattering of red." And that's all you get here. Fortunately, it's all on-line, so you can go and read it for yourself.
We dawdled quite a bit (long enough so that Stynky had to go down and feed the meter again), savoring dinner. I told them then and I tell you now - these are actually some of the best moments in an event for me. Two beers later, it was time to return to the fort.
Photo: Mission
Lily was at the entry of the fort with one of the fort workers, so we messed with them.
Inside the fort, people were just lining up for dinner. We'd had dinner, we wanted alcohol! So we wandered around scouting for some. Stynky suggested we find Edward whom he knew had mead. Who should walk by at that very moment but Edward carrying two plates of food! Serendipity! Or not.
We begged for a bottle and Edward said he had to take the food out to the gate to Lily and the fort worker before it got cold. (Note here that our camp mom for the weekend was voluntarily pulling one of the crappiest gate shifts. Cheers to ya', Lily!) Since we hadn't managed to scrounge drinks with everyone standing in the food line, we went with him. (Can you say desperate?)
Photo: Mission
The best of an iffy bunch of photos.
On the way, we ran into a fort worker in one of those golf cart mobiles. Edward explained that we were taking food
out to the gate. The driver was a friendly fellow; he offered to turn the golf cart mobile around and take us all out there. So
Edward got in the passenger seat and Michael, Stynky and I all clamored into the back. It wasn't padded, but it beat
the heck out of walking to the front gate in period shoes.
Photo: Mission
Delivered in 30 minutes or less or
you'll have to keep waiting...
I tried really hard to get photos of all this, but most of them turned out pretty iffy. (Not unlike the rest of
the Journal, in fact.) We delivered the package(s) and then drove back to the fort. This was fun, but was not helping
us to find drinks at all. Once back in the fort, Edward strode off and we tried to decide whether we
should follow him or not. Apparently the correct answer was 'not.' He wasn't headed anywhere near his tent or the
mead.
We must have looked a motley, sorry lot, standing there outside the common area while everyone dined, slobbering about alcohol. I looked with disgust at Stynky. Where was the Stynky of old, who could conjure mead from the willing hands of his fellow re-enactors without paying for it? He said you had to work it carefully and proceeded to lay out a plan, which you'll discover in Chapter 10 that we did not follow at all.