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Pirate Fest, June 2010 - Put-in-Bay, OH
Chapter 3rd: Giving details of things both important and not (as is usual in these accounts - with a definite lean towards 'not.'). Including bits about cockatoos, cannons, a parade, another bizarre car and a Pirate Costume Contest.
Sometime in the early afternoon, we ran out of Gatorade. To remedy this situation would require going to get more water in the 5 gallon container. Not knowing where to go (and not really wanting to carry 5 gallons of water from where ever that might be), I decided to go across the street to the Park Drive Thru and just buy some. Since it really is a drive thru, there were several cars in line on this hot Saturday. The second car was a bright red Amphibicar (just like the one below left, except without the straw boater, silly enormous sun hats and high waisted bikini.) The owner happened to be in front of me in line and he assured me that he had put as much money into it as he had paid for it - so it's apparently just like owning a Delorean. I asked him if he'd ever driven from the island to the mainland and he assured me he had done this several times. Hey, if you got it, flaunt it, right?
(Photo: Amphibicar Collectors United, Proud and Strong)
Remember the 60s? Relax, they were not really like this. |
(Photo: Amphibicar Models Inc.)
Amphibicars of the Caribbean |
Later in the afternoon, Kate suggested that we should leave for the costume contest. Costume contest? She explained that it was a pirate costume contest and that several of our crew had entered it. This surprised me and I confessed that I was a bit skeptical. Usually the period costumes pale in comparison to the popular ones. I told Kate something like, "The girl with the least amount on or the guy who acts the goofiest will win." I was almost right.
(Photo: Mission)
"Ok, go long! I'm gonna' throw it
in a high arc!"
(Photo: Mission)
Where's Waldo? (C'mon, you must have known
I was setting you up that joke.)
On the way, we encountered some folks engaged in a strange activity - so I
couldn't resist watching. It seems this guy's white cockatoo (whom we'll call
Waldo) had flown up into one of the trees. He was trying to get it down by
throwing a big wad of paper at it. (That would make me want to come down,
surely.) So Kate and I peered into the tree branches. She saw him instantly,
so I pretended I did too. I took a photo - see if you spot him.
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
We arrived at the site of the future costume contest in the center of the
park. Our host, Ty, was practicing on the stage, doing mike checks and such.
I must say the stage looked pretty cool - they had gone to quite a lot of
trouble to dress it with masts, a small boat and barrels.
Ty looked a bit like something you'd see on top of a fancy cake for a retiring British Admiral. Even he even admitted was a bit over the top at one point, but it seemed to fit the role he was going to play. Kate and I played around with him for a bit and then he suggested that we get over to the spot where the parade was to begin soon. He then jumped nimbly off the stage; I guess the mike check was complete.
(Photo: Mission)
We didn't make it very far before Kate spotted some cannons. The cannon
owner was C. Robert Gilmore's Forge. I was told that he likes to bring
his work out to the island and fire them as often as the city council
will allow during Pirate Fest. (Based on what had been going on so far,
this was every half hour. It started with one shot on the half hour,
then two or three simultaneously and then five of them in a round.) We
stepped over there where a girl was test-sighting one of C. Robert's
small cannons (at right.) I guess it's like
buying a used car - you should always try a cannon before purchase.
While testing this little cannon, the girl directed it at the bay,
pointed her finger confidently, and accurately predicted
(
just like the great Babe Ruth) that there would be at least six
more weeks of bachelorette parties on Put-in-Bay (
below left). Kate ignored all this and made a bee line for the
display table (below center and right).
She immediately fell in love with some of the small firing cannons on
the table. It doesn't take a girl in the park pointing her finger to
predict that there may be a cannon test firing in the Bagley family's
future.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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We finally made it to the parade meeting point, which was all the way in the opposite corner of the park from our display. For some reason this location featured only spotty shade cover, so everyone was trying to jigsaw themselves into the cooler areas under the small trees (below). A few brave souls were posing for pictures on the cannon monument with a Jack Sparrow imitator. (I somehow failed to get any photos of this. Alas.) He Who Would Be Jack was quite popular with some of the re-enactors, particularly the females, so who am I to cast stones?
 (Photo: Mission) |
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Someone eventually decided that it would be a good idea to get a group shot of the folks who had showed up for the parade, possibly to take everyone's mind off the fact that they had perspired (or glowed, if they were female) right through their shorts, so, as you see below, that was organized...er...ah...
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
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... let's try that again. It was decided to take a group shot, as you see below, so that was organized and taken for posterity's sake.
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
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(Photo: Mission)
(Photo: Mission)
Following that, everyone went back to vying for spots in the shade
(left). There guy in that photo whom I haven't
introduced is Mike (right). Although these
photos don't show it to quite the best effect, Mike looks a little
like Mel Gibson, especially in his red coat.
Mike was in town at the suggestion of Mr. Gilmore, the cannon maker, with whom he had worked on a cannon. Mr. Gilmore thought Mike would enjoy the event, so he invited him out. Mike was famous in our little group for almost managing to pick up a woman at one of the bars they visited on Friday night when I wasn't there. He got his vic...date all the way to the door when she apparently changed her mind and turned around. He seemed rather determined to remedy this situation this evening and was quite confident that his red coat would be instrumental in helping him to snag some other willing female.
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
While we're on the subject of picking up women, it seems a good
time to relate a story that Shannon told about his adventures on
Friday night. Shannon is married to Trish and they're a happy couple
from what your author has seen, so unfortunately this isn't a story
about Shannon packing up a pack of wild women (like
at left.) No, this is a story about Shannon, Boy Scout. At
some point on Friday night he was innocently making his way home
from a night out on the town when some very inebriated woman latched
on to him. I mean literally latched on to him, partially to avoid
falling. Apparently she and her friend were looking for someone to
guide them back to their hotel and the first guy dressed head to
toe in a pirate costume was their choice. Since Shannon was going
in the direction they seemed to be staggering in, he agreed. The
latchee made several approving comments about our Shannon and then
lurched off with him. They got to the end of the street and...no
hotel. The friend suddenly announced that she now remembered where
the hotel was - the other end of town! So Shannon had a late
night and a very long walk.
Back to the topic at hand, though. The start of the parade was eventually announced. Kate and I quickly decided that we would rather just take photos of the parade than exacerbate our sweat glands by walking on blacktop pavement in full kit in the glowering hot sun. I might not have bothered, however. Some gormless twit decided the only way to get good photographs of the parade was to stand in the middle of the street in front of us ( below left). So he wound up in all my photos. Mr. g. twit eventually decided it wasn't enough to just take photos, he had to actually be a part of the action. Some of the pirates were as confused by him (below center) as I was by his insistence on being a part of my photos. Fortunately Kate has a much more expensive camera that comes with a Gormless Twit Removal Function™, so we will use her photos for the rest of the parade, starting with the Jack Sparrow impersonator getting ready to skewer parade grand marshal Ty (below right.)
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
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(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
Mike by the pirate woman who has both a wagon and a strange furry thing on a stick. |
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
The folks from our crew behind the red-haired woman - Michael, Shannon, Jay, Sam, Jennie and Mark Gist. |
The parade ended at the stage where Kate and I were at the top of this very web page. The Pirate Costume Contest then began. Ty turned out to be a most amusing host, handling his strange situation with good humor. Contestants were brought up on the stage in groups of five (or four or six, depending on who actually showed up at the stage) and were each briefly interviewed: name, home town and solution to the problem of bringing about world peace. There were 30 contestants in all and our group was pretty well represented as you will see.
The first group contained none of our folks, but it did have a woman with incomprehensibly tight leather pants and the Jack Sparrow imitator (below left). Jack was last year's winner. The second group contained Richard, then a person I don't know, Shannon, Michael (in red behind Ty - sorry for the crappy exposure Michael) and M.A. d'Dogge.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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The third group included Jay, Sam and Mark Gist along with a woman whose name I don't remember. The fourth group was most interesting in that it contained a woman in hot pants and a halter carrying a skull in cage from which dangled a severed head. She also had the most out "outie" bellybutton that I've ever seen, which was a big part of what made this group so interesting. (Well, the skull in the cage doesn't hurt either.) Kate was repulsed by this poor woman's belly-button - to the point that I was tempted to post a close up shot here in the forum just so Kate would have to look at it again. (Hey Kate: :P ) The group also contained John Lennon and two other people I didn't know.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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The fifth group once again contained no one I knew (tedious, innit?), although it did have the woman hauling a wagon full of "booty I have stolen from the crowd" according to her. Now she had hauled it in the parade and brought it directly to the stage, so I got to wondering when she managed to steal booty from the crowd? Or am I being too literal? Ok, it was probably just a prop designed to get the judges attention, but that sort of gambit rarely works in these contests. If you go back to the top of this page, you'll note that I said that "The girl with the least amount on or the guy who acts the goofiest will win." There was nothing about a wagon. Sorry, wagon girl. The sixth group contained Mike as Mel Gibson and our own Jennie Gist who was most animated. And that was the lot.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
This left the contest in the hands of the judges. (Right.
No, not the kids, the people sitting at the table. I couldn't crop the photo and
just remove the cute little kids, now, could I? (Answer: No. Mostly because the
photo wouldn't fit then.)). The judges included a local TV anchorwoman, a
government official (I thought it was the mayor, but the Put-in-Bay website says
the mayor is a man, so either I'm confused or they are), the woman in charge of
the Perry's Victory Monument and some guy dressed as a pirate. He may have also
been with the local government. He might be the mayor for all I know.
They must have gotten confused because they made everyone come back up to the stage again, which is something I won't include here. (How many shots of the contestants do we really need?) While they were debating and Ty was vamping on the stage, I took some photos of the crowd. There were quite a lot of people on hand for the contest as you will see below.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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Speaking of the crowd, there were a few things going on of minor interest and humor. Once the second round of contestant parading was over, the Pirate Costume Contest candidates, who had nothing better to do, filtered into the crowd. Kate and I had been standing with Trish, so Michael came over to join us. For most of the contest, a guy standing behind us in pirate garb had been blowing a cheerful blast on a conch horn with fair regularity (below left). Knowing that the horn was likely to be blasted at any minute, we had kept a decent space open in front of our conch-tooting friend. Of course, this was where Michael decided to stand. (Below center: At least he was a good sport about it.)
Also in our area was Sam who was standing by one of his fellow contest contestants. I don't know how badly Sam wanted to win the contest, but it definitely didn't appear to interfere with some serious flirting with one of his opponents. (Below left. She's kind of looks like she's the Mrs. Santa of pirates.) If Mike/Mel had almost been successful with the ladies on Friday night, Sam and Jay had definitely wanted to be. One of the gals in our crew informed me that they probably would have had a better shot at success if they hadn't been trying quite so hard.
(Photo: Mission)
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(Photo: Mission)
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Our group was quite well represented amongst the finalists (below) including Shannon, M.A. d'Dogge, Sam and Mark Gist. In addition, Richard, Mike/Mel and the Jack Sparrow imitator were there. Initially M.A. d'Dogge was not included, which simply stunned me and Kate. Mr. d'Dogge had been in fine crowd-pleasing form all throughout the afternoon and leaving him out seemed most egregious. However, it turned out to be an accounting mistake or something because even the judges know a good pirate ham when they see one and they actually insisted he be restored to the ranks of the finalists.
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Finally the judges had decided and the winner's list was given to Ty. The tension was palpable. Would the Jack Sparrow imitator reign for a second term? No, as it turned out; he won second place. So who could be the winner? Well, most of you probably already know, but I gotta' milk this... (This page is mostly about the Contest, after all.) It was the guy who'd nearly been left out of the contest entirely, our own M.A. d'Dogge. Yes, the three time reigning champion of the Walk the Plank contest at Pirates in Paradise in Key West (For your reference: PiP '07 - PiP '08 - PiP '09) was now the 2010 reigning champion of the Pirate Costume Contest in Put-in-Bay (below). He just seems to have a knack for winning island-based pirate-themed contests.
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
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(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
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Mr. d'Dogge's prize was a trip to the Cayman Islands, which will probably please his wife. Actually, this turned out to be the magic ingredient that Mike, Sam and Jay were looking for based on a story by Shannon. (He of many stories of missed pick-up opportunities and mullet snapshots.) While Shannon was out and about, a woman came up to him and said, with warmth in her eyes, "Hey you're the winner of the Pirate Contest, aren't ya'?" Shannon admitted he was not and the warmth in her eyes instantly cooled. I'm surprised she didn't ask him to introduce her to the winner. (Is this a pirate town or what?) My advice to Sam, Jay and Mike: bone up on their presentation skills so that you have a shot at the prize...in more ways than one. (Then I'll have to bring the big syringe for the treatments that will be required from the results of your 'windfall.' Landfall...you know we surgeons hate it.)
Oh, and I would like to note that my prediction of who would win sort of came true.