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Pirate Fest, June 2013 - Put-in-Bay, OH

Ed Rembert - A Barbary Corsair
Ready For a Night on the Town Chapter 6th: Saturday Evening - Heading back to the encampment to prepare for a night out on the town; Saving Grace from imprisonment (temporarily); Shannon's birthday hat; Dinner at Pasquales; Of Petra from Slovakia; Shannon's birthday cake, courtesy of Kate Bagley; Shannon's birthday fireworks, courtesy of Put-in-Bay; The pirates head for Hooligans (where else?); Of Marley and her extended family and friends and Veronica's search.

Once Site B was shut down for the evening, everyone went back to Site A, where their clothing and such were located so that they could get ready for dinner and all the evening's festivities. (Ironically, this involved showering in the public showers located in the park bathroom, which is right by Site B. For those of you planning for the future, I recommend bringing fresh clothes and toiletries in the morning to Site B so that you don't have to make all those trips between Sites A and B. This public service announcement provided by Mission, who has no business making it because he stays in the hotel.)

Grace Enjoying Her Time Amongst the Pirates Hanging around at Site A, I espied Matt Vincent and decided (practically on a whim, to be honest) that I wanted some face time with Grace, Tammi and Matt's little dog. So I went over and asked him where she was. As it turned out, he had just put Grace in his truck, where she was to spend the rest of the evening. See, Matt and Tammi normally camp and had come prepared to do that, but they were given a room in the Park Hotel. It was one reserved by Gillmor Ordnance for those who were manning their cannon booth. Unfortunately, the Park Hotel didn't particularly want Grace staying in the room, so she was consigned to the truck for the evening.

Matt was thus delighted to let me take Grace, her leash that was connected to a cannon-ball and her water dish and bring them out amongst the pirates. Grace is a very social dog, as Tammi had explained to me earlier and seemed delighted at all the attention she got. All Matt had asked was that I put Grace back in the truck when we left, making sure the windows were down a bit and she had food and water. So that deal was struck.

Anyone who thinks pirates were hard-hearted criminal merely has to look at the photos to belie that belief. (Although, when Cheeky saw that photo of me with Grace below left, she said I was playing with my food - which I was not. Little dogs like that tend to be stringy),

Photo: Terry Smith Mission Pets Grace

Photo: Donna K. Mary Holds Grace

Photo: Mission Cheeky Gets Grace Germs

Photo: Mission "Itching Their Belly Makes 'em Sleep"

While we were all playing with the little dog, the boys were suiting up for a night of action. Ed had changed from Spanish main garb into Barbary Corsair garb, as you may have noticed in the lead-off image for this page. I could swear I remember seeing an image just like his outfit, but the closest thing I could find was the image you find below left. Ed actually told me exactly which country his outfit represented, but I didn't write it down, so I can't share it. His costume was clearly a hit, because everyone tried to recruit him to hang around with them that night, as you see below.

Artist: Pier Francesco Mola A Barbary Corsair

Photo: Mission Barbary Ed and Terry Smith

Photo: Jim Shipley Richard, Vince and Barbary Ed

Photo: Michael Colossimo Carla and Barbary Ed

Sometime during this weekend, it was Shannon's birthday. Our crew has a sordid tradition of doing things to people whose birthday falls on (or near) the same weekend of an event which started with the locking-into-stocks and forced-cupcake-feeding/smashing-in-the-face of M.A. d'Dogge at the Santa Maria May Pirate Weekend in 2012. This led to a similar treatment of Trish at last year's Put-in-Bay
Shannon's Giant Inflatable Hat event, followed by similar treatment of Billie Beach at the Michigan Pirate Festival. So you would have expected similar treatment of Shannon.

The only problem with this was that the trailer containing the stocks had broken down on the way, as I mentioned in an earlier chapter. So it couldn't happen. Instead, Dan Curtis explained that the crew had purchased a ginormous inflatable hat for Shannon, which they brought out and stuck on his head. (It was a really big one. As if Shannon had been made a commodore.)

Now, while this isn't quite the same level of degradation as being locked into stocks - most people would have laughed, worn the hat gamely for a minute or two and then removed it, possibly popping it with a pin in the process so that they wouldn't find it on their head again later. (This would have most likely been because they had celebrated vigorously enough that they didn't realize that the monstrosity was once again perched on their noggin, if you get my drift.) But these people are not Shannon; he wanted to wear it for the rest of the night. Trish put a stop to this because, as she later explained, "he would be like a little kid and hand it to me when he got tired of it (*here Mum...hold this...) then I would be stuck with it." Which I can totally see happening.

However, it made me sad because I thought it would have made an excellent thing to have in a Hat Swap Game. Sort of like musical chairs where whomever gets stuck with the giant inflatable hat has to wear it until the next round of the Hat Swap Game.

Photo: Mission Shannon's Elevation to Commodore

Photo: Michael Colossimo Shannon Stylin' in his Ginormous Birthday Hat

Photo: Mission Shannon Trying to Defend His Hat

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Photo: Donna K.
This is Why We Don't Go Out More Often. When most people were ready, we all agreed to go to Pasquales that night. (While Donna and Cheeky claimed we were going for the fellowship and such, I think they were really going for the Bosco Sticks, based on the fact that they were talking about them most of the way there.)

At Pasquales, they put many of us in the front and near the windows. On the surface this may seem like a good idea - Ty being the pirate event organizer and we being pirates - but deeper down, putting pirates near windows has its down side as you can see from the photo at right. Not all of us have been housebroken yet and... well, you see the results.

I should explain that Pasquales is not a huge place. It's not tiny, but when you dump 20-30 pirates into it, it gets a lot smaller. When we go to a restaurant en masse, we take over the place. Add the fact that half of the people in our group are Type A extroverted entertainers and we can startle most restaurant staffs into hiding in the back.

The 'Adult's' Table at Pasquales (Ha!)

The Kid's Table at Pasquales

The 'We Don't Know Them' Table

The Serious Table at Pasquales

The Wrong Crowd Table at Pasquales

The Beach Table at Pasquales (Wayyy in Back)

Petra Sitting at the Kid's Table Speaking of the restaurant staff, we had the same waitress on Saturday that we had had on Friday. Her name was Petra and she was from Slovakia. Like most of the foreign-born folks I had met who were working in Put-in-Bay, she was currently going to college in her home country - for Journalism. Petra came here because her sister had worked in Put-in-Bay
Photo: Lisa - Petra and Mission a few years ago and I guess she brought back good reports about the place.

Petra was very nice, but definitely had a certain reserve about her. Unfortunately for her, Pasquale owner Ty was around (you may have noticed him sitting at the Kid's Table in the previous bunch of photos.) Poor Petra wound up sitting at the looney kid's pirate table posing for photos. She was actually quite nice about it, but you could tell this definitely wasn't her thing. Maybe when she graduates, she'll write a hard-hitting piece for her local paper about her experiences with the odd residents of the
For Those of You Wondering What's On the Menu... United States. Perhaps she'll win the Pulitzer. (Something we can only dream about for these Journals.)

Now, I had given my camera to Matt and Tammi to take the photos of us with Petra because they were sitting kitty-corner from us at the 'We Don't Know Them' table.

Once that was over, Matt decided to take a few extra photos (like the one at left) for me. For some reason this inspired Cheeky Actress to jump up and retrieve my camera so that she could go on yet another random photo odyssey. This time heading for the wilds of the back room of Pasquales where they had wisely seated George, his dad, Harrison and the Beach brothers. (Curiously, none of these people appear in the photos that Cheeky took. Make of that what you will.)

Tammi - Extreme! Close-up!

Ty and Fillipe (from Mexico)

One Way to Get Served

I... I Don't Know. Guy With Chili?

About
Kate Produces The Cake She Made For Shannon this time, things were starting to wind down. Everyone was pretty well fed and watered and thinking about starting out for the evening's festivities in the local pub scene, by which I mean "Going to Hooligans." Well, most of us would be going there. I believe some of the Wrong Crowd had hopes of going to the teeth gnashing thump-thump-thump places and maybe picking up a bachelorette party member or three. Curiously, in all the time I've been writing this event's Journal, I've never heard a successful story of this occurring. This may be that no one's told me.(Note: Don't feel compelled to tell me, either. I am quite happy with my ignorance.)

However, there was one more Pasquale-based happening I want to mention before we leave: Shannon's birthday cake. Kate had baked him a cake. I don't know what she put into it, but you could smell the alcohol fumes emanating from it at our table. If the FDA had walked in at that moment and smelled that cake, I suspect they would have confiscated it as evidence of wrong doing.

We all pitched in for a hearty round of the song Happy Birthday and then Shannon was given a knife (a seaman's knife, natch) so that he could cut the thing. One of the Pasquale's waitresses even brought out a stack of plates. So that was all very festive and the alcohol content of the confection was good start on the pirate's Saturday Night Out at the Put-in-Bay Pubs.

Photo: Mission Shannon Admiring His Cake

Photo: Michael Colossimo Shannon Trying to Inhale His Cake

Photo: Mission Bringing Us Plates (Like We Need 'Em)

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Photo: Donna K.
Cheeky Startled By Fireworks Leaving Pasquales, the crowd headed for the Boat House. The Boat House has had a pirate contest for the past few years. They always make a point of inviting us to participate in this contest. Last year our crew had been fairly successful in the contest, due primarily to the fact that everyone not from our group had made their costumes out of whatever stripey clothing they found compressed in the bottom of their luggage and the sort of kitschy crap you
Photo: Michael Colossimo
Now THAT's Some Spark! find in the T-shirt shops on an island like Put-in-Bay. So I guess our crew wanted to try their luck again this year.

Unfortunately we arrived too late to participate. The contest had finished and the bar had been turned over to the migrane-inducing thump-thump-thump music. Fortunately the fireworks started on the waterfront. Some of us drifted down there to watch them while the hangers-on looked into the Boat House with sad puppy-dog eyes, wishing they could hit the time machine rewind button and take a whack at winning this year's prize ball. (Surely it must be better than last year's...)

I optimistically decided to try and take photos of the fireworks again this year, despite the fact that this has never worked in the past. As you can see below, my camera is nothing if not consistently bad when it comes to fireworks. (Honestly, the fireworks had colors in them. My camera just chooses to ignore them.)

It's sort of like a sad flower...

The mighty blur erupts!

Ah. A sparkler firework! With bits of red in it.

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One of the Terrible Photos We finally made our way to Hooligans after all the foolish talk about going to other places petered out. I found a table way in the back by the band, where Michael and Kate Bagley and I parked ourselves. Had this been last night, that would have been a primo spot. However, this is Saturday and, for whatever reason, Saturday night at Hooligans for the pirates is never a continuation of Friday night at Hooligans for the pirates. So we kind of sat there for a bit while the rest of the crew seemed to disappear.

One thing of note did happened at this point. A young girl in a red and white striped shirt and a bandanna appeared. You may have noticed that your author is a huge fan of people/event coincidences. (Think Peppermint Patty
Kate Gets Not-Stripey Girl and Her Friend to Pose here.)

I figured that this must be the same girl as had been in Hooligans last year (whom I called Stripey Girl) because she was wearing the same kind of shirt. No one else could possibly be wearing the same kind of shirt, right? I wanted to get a photo of her so's I could comment on it here and marvel at the coincidence. So I took several really terrible shots of her before Kate got disgusted with me and called her and her friend over and asked them to pose for me. Which they did. (It takes a woman's touch, you see.)

Unfortunately, as those of you who have followed that hot link up there will have already discovered, this was not actually the same girl. So we'll call her Not-Stripey Girl. (For now.)

Photo: Terry Smith
Walter and Dawn Plying Their Trade at Site B I left the table in the back and headed for the bar to get a drink where I discovered that the bar had become crowded, hot and noisy. (Actually, it had been all of those things since we had arrived, but I hadn't been paying it much mind until I went up to the bar.) Feeling claustrophobic, I wandered out to the porch to see what was going on there. I found a large number of our folks out there.

I took an empty chair at the table where Walter and Don Loomis and another couple I didn't know were seated. Talking with Walter and Dawn, I learned that they used to own a coffee shop in Indiana. One day they decided that being tied to a physical location wasn't nearly as much fun as going around to reenactment events and selling coffee. So they hit the road and have been hawking coffee that way (as well as on-line) ever since.

I introduced myself to the other couple at the table, whose names were Robert and Mary. We had a long chat, which I dutifully wrote down in my little notebook. The only problem was that there was no decent lighting on the porch and I had to scribble down some notes without the aid of checking them. This will become apparent shortly.

Robert
Robert and Mary at Hooligans and Mary had arrived in Put-in-Bay their boat, a Trimaran, which was docked downtown. I asked what it cost to dock in downtown Put-in-Bay and they told me it was $1.45 per foot. (I assume this rate is per day. Bad notes.) I asked if they had sailed here from their home port and Robert explained that their boat was "like a Transformer robot" and could somehow fold up in such a way that they could get it on a trailer and tow it around. Now, here I have written down 24 x 18, which doesn't sound like proper boat dimensions at all, so I have no idea what that means, unless their boat is a trimaran pontoon boat.

Robert and Mary told me that they had taken their Transformer boat all over the place including Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and the Coast of Maine. I also wrote Shall We Dance in my notes with no further explanation, so I am going to guess that this is the name of their boat. (I was on my third drink or so at this point.)

Curious, I asked them what they did professionally. Mary is a dental hygienist and Robert was a technical illustrator. However their avocation was taking the Shall We Dance around and sailing on it. Mary told me that she had sewed their outfits herself and that they wore pirate clothing all the time. I incredulously asked Robert if he wore them at his job and he said, "Sure."

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Possibly Alex, Not-Stripey Girl
Marly Looking Piratey This brings us to Marley. Marley was a peck of fun from my POV. She is one of those extravagantly extroverted people who like having a good time. She had been in the bar dancing with Not-Stripey Girl earlier, but she and her entourage had come out on the deck for air or something where they found the pirates. Not-Stripey Girl turned out to be Marley's younger sister, whom I think was named Alex, although my note-taking was just this side of utter chaos by this point. Alex may also have been Marley's sister's boyfriend. Or maybe they were both named Alex. (It's that sort of name, you see.)

Marley and me. (Ha ha, I love that joke.) Marley and Alex were not alone. In fact, there was a whole battalion of young girls with them, although this was (notably) not a bachelorette party. No, Marley's crowd was here because it was Pirate Fest! They were camping in the state park as they did the year before. They were specifically here to enjoy the Pirate weekend. I asked Marley if she had ever worn the stripey shirt. (Even then I had a feeling it wasn't Alex I had seen last year). She said that she had and that they always traded clothes, although she was at least two sheets to the wind by this point and her recall on this fact could be brought into question.

Some of the other girls in their group wanted to leave Hooligans and go to one of the thump-thump-thump bars, but Marley told them she wanted to stay where all the pirates were. (Much to the delight of many of the pirates as you see in the photos below. Er, and the one at left. *Ahem*) If Marley's effervescent personality alone weren't enough to endear her to our pirate crew, she seemed to have an endless supply of flasks of Captain Morgan Black Rum which she willingly shared with anyone in pirate garb.

Marley with her Groupies

Marley & Vince (Before the Accident)

Marly Sharing Her Rum...

Marley and her Mom at Hooligans I chatted with Marley a bit and discovered that she was a pediatric nurse. She told me she loved working with little kids, but sometimes her work could be heart-breaking.

Alex, Her Dad and Her Boyfriend at Hooligans I also learned that not only was her sister Alex there with her, but so were her mother and father. I guess the family that pirates together...uh... well, I dunno what they do? Get drunk together? Perhaps get thrown in prison together?

I learned all sorts of interesting things about her family from chatting with them, but I have forgotten most of it (like people's names) and my notes from this point are not helpful. (For example, I have written "solidified' in there. What can that possibly mean?) However, I do recall that her dad rides a motorcycle and that he is a 4th grade teacher in Cleveland who recently received an award for his teaching program.

Marley and Alex's Dad in the Hat
Marley and Alex's Mom in the Hat Since Marley had come to the island on the family and friends plan, I decided to start popping the Patrick Hand Original™ Planter's Hat on each of them so I could get photos for the Journal.

If you're wondering about the hook (and crooked finger which is supposed to represent a hook), that was Marley's idea. She felt you couldn't be a proper pirate without a hook for some reason. I would have explained to her that a hook was just one of several prosthetics a period seaman might have had and that most seaman, and thus pirates, probably didn't have them, but she was about three sheets to the wind by this point.

Marley in the PH Hat

Alex in the Patrick Hand Hat

Alex's Friend in the PH Hat

Alex's Boyfriend in the PH Hat

Photo: Terry Smith - George, Our Hero Unfortunately, the Marley story took a turn south after this. She went into the bar with some of the boys who started buying her shots. I don't know if there's a 'four sheets to the wind' stage to imbibing, but if there is, Marley reached it. The boys emerged from Hooligans sort of carrying her. Her mom (who seemed a responsible sort) then took charge. She darted out of Hooligans and retrieved the family golf cart to take Marly back to the camp site.

Somehow George got involved in this and ended up in the golf cart propping Marly up and generously holding her hair back while she purged all that alcohol en route. So the true hero of Marley's story is George, although I doubt she realized this. (He could have sent her his dry-cleaning bill, but George is too good a guy for that.) On behalf of Marly - who probably doesn't remember him - Yay George!

Now, lest you think the only thing going on in Hooligans was the interaction between the pirates and Marley's family, I thought I'd share some non-Marley-related photos from Hooligans on Saturday night.

M.A. d'Dogge, Proud Papa

A Recip Photo. This May ACTUALLY BE a Bachelor Party!

Cheeky and Billie Share a Mo

A Girl I don't Know in the Patrick Hand Hat Of course, it wouldn't be a Put-in-Bay Saturday Night without some inexplicable end-of-the-evening story involving a girl. It just seems to be the way of these things.

Veronica, Looking for Julie We all left Hooligans, most likely because it was closing time. I was walking Cheeky Actress and Mary Diamond back to camp, being the preux chevalier and all. When we reached T & J's Smokehouse, a girl came stumbling out of there, staggered up to our little group and demanded to know if we had seen her friend Julie. ('Who is Julie?' you ask. Who knows?) She explained that one minute she was in the bar drinking with Julie and the next Julie was gone! (One suspects that the word 'minute' was being used quite liberally here. As in 'one minute I was with Julie and then thirty one minutes later that guy I was talking to left and I couldn't find Julie.') We told her that we hadn't seen Julie. "Well, if you do, tell her Veronica is looking for her!" And then she stumbled off into the night.

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