Chapter Selection Menu:   P   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   E       Next>>

Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion Nov/Dec 2012 - Key West, FL

Chapter 10th: Sunday morning - The bachelor surgeon in his natural habitat; The health report on two-day old melted I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light; Encountering Israel Cross on his way north; Meeting Mad Maeve the apothecary; The Chad Azevedo 1680 replica bone saw takes its maiden flight - so to speak and other sundries for your amusement.But first, a word from our sponsor.

Photo: Mission
William Recounts a Story About Guam For Zak Well! It seems that the FTPI 2012 Pirate Surgeon's Journal sponsor is not completely satisfied with the way I have been placing their products so far. (Their exact words were, "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you not understand the meaning of the word 'sponsor'?") In the spirit of being a good business partner, I have decided to write a couple of vignettes featuring some of the Journal players and bring an international marketing specialist aboard to write taglines featuring the name 'Avis' to make sure I get a nice big fat check and the end of all this.

"You know, this draught of the Mercury reminds of that time we were anchored off the Northwestern corner of Guam and this guy comes stumbling drunk out of the tropical foliage holding a penguin in a top hat and asked said, "Pardon me, but could you help out a fellow American who's down on his luck?" Then the guy grinned like Liberace. Of course, it turned out to be Stynky. Ah, Guam. That was also the Places where we are finding the store what sold Bone china Underpant and phony dog Poo for which we are to be Stocking Our ship - Avis!"

---

Photo: Mission
The Forgetful Mercury Crew and Keith's Car When the Mercury boys dropped me off at the condo a few days ago, they had thoughtfully brought the groceries up with them because I had my monster hard case suitcase and my black carry-on to wrestle with. Unfortunately, they didn't bring all the groceries, which I know was an honest mistake, because they didn't actually take or eat any of the things that they had left behind in Keith's car.

I really wouldn't have minded this much, except they left the coffee, bread and the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light. (Your surgeon is absolutely addicted to I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light. He will not even reveal how much he consumes because he doesn't want to hear all that nannying nonsense about how bad it is for you. Nyah.)  The real crime here would have been the loss of the coffee if I hadn’t found leftover coffee in the condo. Someone at the fort would have had to send paramedics to my condo with IV bags of caffeine once they realized they hadn't seen me for two days. Fortunately some previous tenant had left behind a can of Folger's French Roast, which worked for the nonce.

Since I had coffee, I didn't miss the rest of the groceries enough to remember
Photo: Mission
" Fumes! Toxic Waste! It's All Ours!" to ask Keith about them when I saw him at the fort. (For newbs, Keith is event organizer Lily Alexander's husband and he is the runner for the event. If something is needed to keep Lily from completely losing her marbles, he goes and gets it.) So the bread, coffee and butter stuff sat in Keith's car for two days before I remembered to ask him about it on Saturday night. He gave it to me that night.

Now bread and coffee can pretty much deal with the trunk of a car in the glorious Florida sun and heat, but the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light - not so much so. In fact, I could feel the liquefied contents of the sealed plastic tub rolling around when I picked it up the previous night.

I threw it in the fridge anyhow. (I am a bachelor, if you haven't already figured that out.) Wanting breakfast this morning, I wondered what to use to cook eggs in. I couldn't use melted/ reconstituted margarine substitute, could I?

Haven't you been paying attention? I am a bachelor! So use it I did. It looked all right, although it tasted a bit off. Lily later told me it is one molecule off from plastic, so that’s probably what kept it food safe. If it is food safe.

Photo: Mission
Krystian Shows Off Her Engagement Ring with Reggie Looking Pleased As I was peddling my bike into the fort, I met Israel Cross and his now bride-to-be Krystian. As you already know (provided you’ve been paying attention to the narrative) Reggie popped the question on Saturday and she said yes. So they were on their way to wedded bliss.

Actually, they were on their way to Disneyworld, and, more particularly, Epcot Center. Yes, they were leaving the fort and heading for Orlando. For some reason they wanted to celebrate their engagement in a place that was suitably far away from a bunch of overripe pirates.

They seemed eager to go, so I wished them the best and peddled on.

---

Once inside the fort, I set up my surgeon's gear for the day and was immediately inundated with tourists. It was a brisk day of doctoring. Among the interested parties were Brig and her daughter Keira. Keira was particularly fascinated with some of the bottles of medicine. I am trying to encourage this so that I can get Brig to apprentice Keira to me when she turns seven. Once apprenticed, she'd get seven years of tutelage working in the bowels of the ship, mixing gruel, plasters and medicines and listening to the surgeon whine about the sailors and the sailors whine about their boo-boos. Who could resist THAT? "Girl, go and mix me a batch of that tertian clyster we used on the Viceroy! Don't stand there gaping at the bottle, go!"

Photo: Diane Mueller The Surgeon at his Table

Photo: Mission Brig and Keira Visiting the Surgeon's Table

Photo: Mission "You hold a whole future there!"

Across the way from me was a woman preparing animal pelts.
Photo: Mission
Women Cleaning the Goat's Pelt I never got the chance to sit down and chat with her, but it was sort of interesting to watch her scraping the hides all day long. She occasionally had a helper. A very neat slice of living history.

Photo: Jessica Bagley
Michael the Happy Viking I later learned that she was scraping the hide of the goat. What would it be called? Goat… fur? …skin? …let’s go with pelt. From my limited experience milking goats, I can say that I had not noticed goats to be particularly soft. So I can’t imagine that the pelt is very nice material even when it is scraped clean.

I suppose if you were doing a Viking impression it would be nice. (Someone tell Michael Bagley - I'm sure he'd be happy to have some goat pelts!) Either way, I guess it gave her a hobby.

Across the other way from the surgeon's table there was a 'spiritual' ceremony going on in the sally port, courtesy of the Bawdy Buccaneers. When I got a slow moment, I trooped over to listen in and shoot some photos. They were singing about how various biblical figures were obviously constipated. 'Ah, Spiritual!' Incidentally, when the Brigands were singing later on, I noticed their songs contained several verses concerning various medical maladies experienced by sailors. Clearly there was a decided medical theme to some of the music this weekend! Very apropos.

Photo: Mission Nell and Lily Alexander Getting Some 'Religion' from the Bawdy Bucs

Photo: Captain Jim The Public in for Church

While I was out from behind the table, I decided to wander some more and see what there was to see in the fort. Below are just some of the things to be seen on Sunday morning.

Photo: Don Dunbar Fayma, Lily and Scarlett Jai at the Friends of Fort Taylor Table

Photo: Mission Charlie, Spike and Constable Heartless Roll Charges

Photo: Don Dunbar Crudbeard Tries to Reason With Oreo

Photo: Don Dunbar d.m. atlas at His Weapons Display

Photo: Mission Wendy Scarred

Photo: Mission
Deadeye Brings Apothecary Mad Maeve Over Deadeye brought a young lady over to meet me by the name of Mad Maeve. She was working on creating an apothecary impression for herself. She wanted to chat with me and pick my brain on how to do it properly.

Poor Mad Maeve picked the wrong role model for her impression. I am nearly hopeless with the medicines from this time period. All the prescriptions are written in abbreviated, italicized Latin which is occasionally misspelled. As a result, I have shied away from it as much as possible.

She asked me several questions about what would be used in different situations and I was surprised to learn that I actually knew a bit more about it than I thought I did. While we were gabbling, I started showing her bottles from a home medicine kit that I had acquired from eBay. These bottles had nice, original, clear labels.

She became quite fascinated. She started asking me what they were for and I just shrugged my shoulders since I'd never looked them up. This made me realize there were a whole bunch more in my shipping crate, located inside of a very
Photo: Mission
Maeve the Apothecary's Traveling Kit - Herbs and Honeys old Cuban cigar box that had been dummied up as a home medicine chest. She greedily took the box and examined the contents closely.

While she was doing that, I asked about her. I discovered that Deadeye had brought her to FTPI last year. She fell in love with the sport and decided upon the Apothecary role. It's a good choice because I only know of a few people who do that impression. I asked why she chose that role and she told me that she had always been interested in herbal medicines and this was a chance to expand her knowledge on the topic and get involved in the pirate reenacting thing. She showed me her little portable medicine kit and explained some of
Photo: Mission
Mad Maeve the things it contained like honey, wormwood and revealed how they were used.

She had a slight accent that I couldn't place, so I asked her where she was from. Originally. "Northwestern Massachusetts; we have a slight accent, but we can still pronounce our r's, unlike those people in Boston." I learned that she had left Massachusetts 8 years ago and come down here with someone because they wanted to go as far south as they could to get away from the snow and ice. Her companion thought they might live with some of her family in South Carolina, but she told him that if they were going as far south as they could, they shouldn't stop. So they wound up in Key West. She had never been here before they arrived, which I found interesting.

She wandered off and returned with an herbal book and started to explain the contents of my Cuban cigar box medicine kit to me. For example, Arnica is an ingredient to reduce swelling; Calengila is actually Marigold and it is used as a styptic and to make an ointment for abrasions and burns. Capsicum was actually cayenne pepper which is put on the gums for temporary toothache relief. And so on. It was a good thing I let her pick my brain about the role of the apothecary because she taught me a lot.

Photo: Mission
The Goat's Traveling Kit - Also With Herbs and Honeys While I was talking with Denice, Bartleby Boom - one of the Sunday Dinner cooks - came over and asked if he could use my bone saw to cut the breast bone of the pig. After asking, he looked at me, then looked at William Red Wake who was sitting next to me and asked, "Why's he grinning like that?"

I  told him he could only use my bone saw for this operation if I could help. I already had a liking for Bartleby because he was one of the fellows who was involved with cooking the goat. In fact, I had only recently seen he and Blackheart Charlie going by with the spitted goat. (No, not the spitting goat, although that might have been amusing as well.)

We strode (he was a strider) over to the spot near the fort wall where they were preparing food. He unceremoniously dumped the pig out of its ice chest onto the chest lid.

Photo: Mission
Bartleby Making the First Cut It was already gutted - the breast bone needed to be cut from inside the pig's chest. So he started sawing away and I watched.
Photo: Don Dunbar
Chad Reflects on a Saw Well Done Then he asked me if I could hold the pig open while he sawed, which would have meant I couldn't get photos, so I hollered at Devlin - who happened to be passing, heading for the fort wall parapet to watch the battle. I asked Devlin to take photos while I assisted on the operation.

Eventually Bartleby got it to where he was happy and I followed Devlin up to the fort wall to watch the battle.

While I was absent, Mr. Boom decided to cut through the entire pig. He used the bone saw to chop it in half. He had nothing but praise for the saw (which was my Chad Azevedo hand-crafted replica of a 1680 saw) and boasted that it allowed him to "cut through the pig's leg joint in 24 seconds." More props for Chad's fine work!

Photo: Mission's Camera "Doctor." "Doctor." "Doctor."

Photo: Mission's Camera Mission Holding While Bartleby Cuts

Photo: Mission's Camera "Mission Only Pawn in Game of Life"

Photo: Mission's Camera Mission Happy About the Bonesaw's Christening

Photo: Mission's Camera Bartleby Sets the Saw Down After Cutting

Photo: Mission The Gory Bonesaw

Chapter Selection Menu:   P   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   E       Next>>