Chapter Selection Menu: 1 2 3 4 E Next>>
Pirate Fest, June 2014 - Put-in-Bay, OH
Chapter 3rd: Looking into what the pirates did during the evenings beginning with Friday Jenga (we really know how to live it up); Moving on to the rather extensive Saturday Hat Swap Game; Some strange card game that the author knows little about so we won't go into it too much and finishing with the theft of the surgeon's hat and the result. (Best. Hat. Story. Ever. Seriously.)
What occurs during the day is really only half the story of an event. (Well, it's actually about 2/3 of the story, unless we stay up real late.) So this chapter is devoted to what happened on Friday and Saturday night.
Michael Bagley Considering the Giant Jenga Stack
Friday night is often (although not always) the tamer of the two nights. This is because everyone knows we have have get up early on Saturday and spend the whole day out in the sun explaining 17th century pirate information. That and most of the truly transient drunks plan their binge for Saturday night so the crowd in town on Friday is usually a tad more reasonable resulting in less consternation among the ranks.
After dinner on Friday night at T&J's, Mary Diamond and me headed for Hooligan's Irish Pub because that's where we usually go. Along the way we got to talking about a bar with a sand floor and swings for seats at the bar and I became curious. "You have to sit on one. It's fun!" she enthused. It sounded intriguing, so we stopped at Mojito Bay on the way. Unfortunately, none of the bar swing seats were available when we got there.
Fortunately, a whole gang of our fellow pirates were also there, so we stayed. The Michaels (Bagley and Colosimo) were involved in a game of giant Jenga with some slightly drunk 20 something frat-type guys. Having nothing better to do, we watched.
The somewhat drunken frat guys were loudly cheering themselves on, insisting that they were going to beat the pirates. Doing so was clearly an important feather in their cap. Maybe it meant they would win 150 points for the Goofendork house, 
Mission and Mary on the
Bar Swing
giving them the edge on winning Lord Stanislas' Cup and the grand prize of a free year's worth of beer. (Which would be a LOT of beer, based on what I saw.)
Or maybe it's just because they were competitive drunken frat guys who would have behaved the same way whether playing Jenga against pirates, underprivileged kids or a group of invalid, shut-in nuns. Difficult to say.
The game went on for quite some time. Eventually, most of the folks in the back of the bar were watching because the drunken frat guys were making such a ruckus about their chances of winning, prancing around the bar, beating their chests and generally making a concerted effort to consume as much beer as humanly possible in the process. The game was was so tense and engrossing that Mary noticed that a swing seat opened up at the bar. I protested that we needed two seats to do the thing properly, but she suggested that we share it, so we did that. (Photo op.)
Meanwhile, the giant Jenga game continued; it was clear that the drunken frat guys had to win. Michael Bagley eventually made a mistake that cost the Michaels (and thus the pirates) the game, which sent the drunken frat guy team into an even more frenzied round of beer drinking. (I don't want to say there was cheating going on, but I could swear I heard one of the drunken frat guys say 'wingardium leviosa" or something like that just before Michael B. touched that last piece.)
This wasn't the end, however. Elated with victory (and beer), the frat guys said, "Und now, ve dance" and they did. The exchanged hats with the Michaels which is NOT to be considered as a part of any official Hat Swap Game, but I'll let it be included here anyhow.
 Michael Colosimo Carefully Removing a 2x4 From Giant Jenga |
 The Jenga Victory Dance and Hat Exchange |
A girl whom I think was part of the drunken frat group and her friend
The Girl in the Patrick Hand Original™
had been hanging around our table trying to engage me in conversation during and after the intense giant Jenga game. Despite my best taciturn turn, she seemed to see some future in this because she kept persisting. Finally I stuck the Patrick Hand Original™ Planter's Hat on her and took her photo. (Her friend also took a photo with her smart phone.) This seemed to satisfy her because they returned to their friends and stopped trying to converse with me.
Michael Colosimo must have executed his Jenga skills well enough to win the attention of one of the many bachelorette parties. (There are always bachelorette parties in Put-in-Bay on the weekend nights, prowling the streets for unsuspecting sailors.) Michael wound up being photographed with a gaggle of them in a sand-filled boat located in the back of the bar as you see below left. I'm not sure it's the best endorsement for a sailor, let alone a pirate, who winds up in a clearly wrecked, sand-filled boat, but he didn't seem to care since he was surrounded by an intoxicated bachelorette party. (I guess I can see his point.)
Our crew finally decided we had had enough of the Mojito tiki bar, so we headed over to Hooligan's. Breaking with their usual custom for the Pirate weekend, Hooligan's didn't have a loud Irish-style band playing. In fact, I don't even recall what the band was playing. I want to say it was 70s or 80s rock or something equally uninspiring to folks dressed in pirate garb. So, rather than going inside to listen and/or dance, we hung out on the deck for the rest of the evening and chatted.
 Michael Colosimo - Nice Crew, Nasty Boat |
 Mary, Becci, Sos Boss Dave and Michael C. on Hooligan's Deck |
Saturday
The Reel Bar
proved to be a little more exciting, at least for me. After we left the Niagara, where we had been wined and dined by the cognoscente of the island (see Chapter 1 for more on that), we made our way down through town to drink with the rowdy frat boys and tipsy bachelorette parties.
We were (presumably) headed for Hooligan's again. (Although, without a loud Irish band, it didn't have quite the usual appeal this year.) As we were making our way there, someone informed the group that we had been invited to the Reel Bar by the owner. The Reel Bar was a sponsor of the event this year and it only seemed fitting that we should throw a bit of our custom to one of our benefactors. So we did.
Mission Swapping Hats
Keep in mind that there were nearly 50 reenactors staying with us in town. We had all just been on the Niagara and were all looking for somewhere to go, so we headed en masse for the Reel Bar. We filled up a good part of it. It proved to be a fine and comfortable place to spend the rest of the evening and we proceeded to do so.
It occurred to me that we hadn't really had a good round of the Stynky's Hat Swap Game in a while and this was the opportune moment. So I started. Most of this page will now be filled with images from the game.
Usually I make an effort to identify who is wearing which hat. This time, I'm going to let you figure it out for yourselves. (Because I am too lazy to try and figure it out for you.) The main exception will be the Patrick Hand Original™ Planter's Hat, which I know well and will lead this section (for easy future reference.)
We begin with the men of the Medusa crew trying the planter's hat.
 Tim Clark in the Patrick Hand Hat |
 Jeremy Nichols (Almost too small) |
 Faith With Joshua Stahl in The Hat |
Next we have some some representatives of the Harlot's Virtue Pirate Crew.
 Rick Ross Toasts the Patrick Hand Hat |
 Clare Borrelli Engulfed in the Chapeau |
 Dave Nevill Looking Sharp |
There was also a sort of impromptu 'Ladies of the Patrick Hand Hat' Hat Swap...
 Cat Kenney Flourishes the Hat |
 Our Waitress Salutes It |
 A Nice Match for Mary Diamond |
...along with a few others who climbed into the Cap.
 Michael Colosimo Looking Austere |
 Matt Vincent Looking Jolly |
 Jennifer Hoyle Looking Nice |
Naturally, while I was running around the bar sticking my hat on people's heads, their hat wound up on mine. As is usual, there aren't many pictures of this because I am the only one who seems to find that the Hat Swap Game merits being recorded on film. So the only way photos get taken of me is if I hand my camera to someone. Below are a few rare examples.
 Mission in a Black Boater |
 I Have No Idea What Sort of Hat This Is. A Tribly? |
 Ah, the Leather Tricorn and Pipe Look |
And then there was Michael and Jessica Bagley trying on other folks hats. You know what they say; the couple who plays Stynky's Hat Swap Game together... um... winds up in the Journal together. (OK, no one says that, but just go along with me here.)
 Michael Looking... Fierce...in a tricorn. (Not.) |
 Jessica in the Colosimo Chapeau |
 The Always Popular Hat Vendor Look |
Next we have an assortment of girls trying different lids.
 "Why are we doing this?" asks Angie |
 "I Have No Idea." Amanda Clark in Her Tim's Hat |
 Clare Borrelli in Michael Bagley's Hat |
And we can't show feature the girls without also featuring the boys!
 Rick Ross in a Hat That Apparently Makes Him Want to Dance |
 SoS Dave Showing Everyone the Key Element to this Game |
 Richard Conroy Takes His Hat Swapping Seriously |
We pirates know how to have a really good time when we go out for a rowdy night on the town in place like Put-in-Bay which, as I noted earlier, is teaming with drunken coeds. In fact - and I don't want to shock anyone too much here, but I must explain the facts as they happened - a card game broke out amongst the pirates hanging around on
Cards Against Humanity Indeed - At The Reel Bar
the outside deck of the Reel Bar. The game was called "Cards Against Humanity". Yep. What a wild bunch, we.
The way this game works (from what I saw) is that someone reads a statement from a black card which contained a blank. Like "A bunch of rowdy, uncivilized pirates out on the town celebrated by _______."
Then the rest of the players look through their hands full of white cards - which contained potential answers - and pass the answer what they feel is the best (by which I mean most bizarre or offensive) one to the person who read the question. All the answers are then read aloud by the questioner.
For example, the answer to the above statement might include such things as "setting fire to their hair", "racing saddled pigs through the street", "performing embarrassing sex acts" (embarrassing sex acts seemed to figure heavily amongst the answer cards) or something really outrageous like "playing a card game on the back deck."
The questioner then picks their favorite answer and the person who gave that answer goes directly to jail without passing Go or collecting two hundred dollars. Or something like that. They invited me to play, but I am just not that rowdy. (You have to have limits.)
This brings us to the last evening-oriented story, which involves the theft of the Patrick Hand Original™ Planter's Hat. Let me begin at the beginning.
I had been vigorously running around the Reel Bar, plopping my hat on anyone who would stand for it and taking their photo (as you have already seen). I had not thought ahead and my camera battery began to die.
Image From the 2012 Story
Regular readers may recall that this happened at Put-in-Bay in 2012. At that time, I just figured that that was the end of the photo-documented Surgeon's Journal portion of the evening and stuck it in my pocket.
Of course, fate stepped in (as it sometimes will) and sucker-punched me by ending the evening with one of the best stories of that weekend. I thought it was so good, I had to tell in the Journal without any proof. (I still think people believe I made that up. I didn't. It happened just like I said.)
So I wasn't about to let that happen again! As much as I didn't want to, I decided to go back to my room at the Park Hotel and replace my camera battery with a fresh one just in case another great story happened. One did.
Now, I had been enjoying the evening, being convivial and was in a rather loose and trusting mood. As I was making my way down the street back to the hotel, my head scarf started slipping off. I had tried to re-tie it earlier that afternoon, but I canNOT tie a scarf on my own head properly for some reason. There are people (not to name names, but, Captain Jim McGavic of the Mercury Crew) who think that I mostly have girls tie my head scarf so that I can get photos of me with girls tying my scarf on my head for the Journal. This is only mostly true.
My Twin Mae Tying My Head Scarf
At the Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion, 2011
I also do it because girls know how to tie silk scarves properly. (Well, some do.) But I am veering off course here...
Standing in the street in Put-in-Bay, I took off my hat and pulled off my sadly wilting head scarf. I looked at the scarf rather dourly and wondered if I could tie it back on myself properly, knowing that the answer was, as always, a resounding 'No!' (If I can't tie it on properly in normal circs, I figured my chances of being able to do so when I have been convivial for several hours were nil.)
So I set my hat askew on an advertising sign on the sidewalk and went over to a gaggle of girls standing outside the Level 2 Nightclub to ask them to tie it. (Level 2 is a thump-thump bar. By which I mean the music shakes the ground outside the bar because of the staccato bass THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! pouring out of the speakers in the place.)
See if I Ever Eat Subway Again...
After some giggling and chatter amongst themselves, one of the girls tied my scarf on for me. (There is no photo of this for reasons I have already explained.)
Then I turned back to the street to retrieve my hat and walk back to the hotel. Most of you are way ahead of me and already know that the hat was missing.
Now what?
There are a lot of bits of my pirate persona that I could lose and not miss, some that I could lose and miss and a few that I could lose and really miss. (Like my original fish mug, which was stolen from the Park Hotel at Put-in-Bay in 2012.) But my hat? It was beyond any of those categories, in a class by itself.
I had only two days before finished a whole article devoted to the Patrick Hand Hat! It had been an integral part of my persona from the beginning! This was not a missing hat, it was an existential crises! Fortunately I was still feeling a bit convivial, so the magnitude of the loss was slightly dulled.
Put-in-Bay on the weekend, in the evening, is awash with people, many of whom travel from bar to bar like drunken nomads searching for the right, palm-tree lined oasis. (That would be the Beer Barrel Saloon. No, seriously, they have a neon palm-tree lined bar. They used to have a neon monkey
The Neon Monkey
*sniff*
I still miss 'im...
in one of the neon palm trees, but he must have been broken or gotten stolen because I haven't seen him in years. But we're off course again.)
I strode around the area where the hat had been, looking for someone who might be standing there, holding my hat, hopefully as a joke. Nope. No one. None of the gaggle of girls seemed to have it. (And they certainly didn't have anywhere they could hide it.) I scanned the surging sidewalk. Uh uh. I walked briskly down the street and back up it - no one I saw was carrying a large brown planter's hat. What to do? I finally decided there was nothing for me to do, but go and get my camera battery. So I did that.
On the way to the hotel and back I mentally examined the situation. Would it be a new chapter in the Mission book of pirate reenacting? Maybe I should give up the sport entirely? Could I get a replacement hat? (I rejected that last idea out-of-hand. A replacement Patrick Hand hat would never, ever do, even if I could convince Patrick to make me a new one. It would not be the same.) What a strange new world I was entering into!
Back at the Reel Bar, with my freshly recharged camera in hand, I told my story. At first people thought I was joking. When they realized my hat had actually been stolen, they began to marshal forces. (I, on the other hand, had pretty much given it up for lost at this point. The part that really annoyed me is that some drunk who placed no value on it other than as an evening's prize had taken it. I, on the other hand, had written about its' adventures for over seven years.)
Trish Politely Inquiring About My Hat
Marshalling complete, Trish grabbed my arm and ushered me out of the bar. "Where are we going?" I asked. "To look for your hat," she answered grimly. "We'll never find it," I said. "We'll try." So we did.
We went to the bouncer of every single bar on the main drag. None of them had noticed anyone wearing it, but they invited us to come and look for it. Trish asked that if they saw it, they should grab the hat and return it to the pirates hanging around at Site B in the morning. (She didn't call it Site B, but you know what I mean.) We finally reached T&J's which is where we ran out of bars. No sign of the hat. So Trish suggested we go back.
Having seen enough of the main drag, we headed towards the alley. Just as we were about to walk down one of the connecting thoroughfares from the main street into the alley, Trish's phone rang. "Who could that possibly be?" she said.
Up until now I figured this whole thing was a completely lost cause. But the sound of the phone gave me hope. Actually, I knew someone had found it - why else would someone be calling her at that hour in this place. "They found it." Trish said simply.
We made our way quickly back to the Reel Bar. Jessica Bagley was on the street, clutching the Patrick Hand Original™ to her. Unbelievable. "What happened?"
The Champions of the Stolen Patrick Hand Hat?
There was a group of young guys sitting on the porch of the Reel Bar, who had apparently been listening in on the discussion between the pirates on the sidewalk before I got there. They started explaining how they had seen the guy who stole my hat who was six feet tall (and then he was over six feet tall and then seven feet tall...he grew bigger with each new twist of their story.) and they were going to take it from him but when they started after him he ran away from them and they didn't see where he'd gone and...
Riiiiigght. Jessica gave the boys on the porch an "Oh, please" look and they lost interest in us and focused their attention on their drinks. The real story was far more fantastic.
She explained that after we left, everyone went out to the nearest bars and started canvassing them looking for the hat. No one could find it. When the initial search came up empty, it occurred to Jess that if
Jessica Clutching the Recovered Patrick Hand Hat
someone had it, they might not be wearing it - it might be sitting on the bar, a table or a seat. So she went back into Hooligan's and started doing a recon of the flat surfaces. She spotted it at a table loaded with 'four big guys.' "What did you do?" I asked, agog with curiosity.
"I asked him what the f*** was wrong with him and told him it was wrong to touch other people's stuff. I told him he was a drunk douche-bag and then I stormed out. I told the bouncer that the guy might follow and not to let him. The bouncer said 'OK!' Then I got to Michael [Bagley] and back to the Reel Bar as fast as possible. And I waited for you. That's when the adrenaline stopped and I got nervous about what I'd just done." Then she offered me my hat.
Just when I thought I'd gotten all the mileage I could out of that thing and decided to write it's reenacting life story, this happened! It is probably the best Patrick Hand Original™ Planter's Hat story to date. Plus it's great to find that you have such splendid friends. It really, really is.