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Santa Maria Pirate Weekend, May 2011 - Columbus, OH

Photo: Diosa
The pirates breakfast in the park Chapter 4th. Of Sunday morning, when it rained, putting a damper on things. So much so that few pictures were taken and the surgeon wound up spending a large chunk of this chapter talking about himself. So you might want to skip that part. Also of a quickly arranged battle with invisible assailants, people with the band, Tirzah's dragon, M.A. d'Dogge's photo gallery and other assorted sweetmeats. (I'll bet you didn't know sweetmeats is an old word for 'candy', did you? Now you do.)

Despite all my whining about not having a book to read on Saturday I still managed to forget to bring one back to the room for Sunday. So, you guessed it, I was left once again reading Destination Hyatt. (And I was really scraping bottom this time. I read an article entitled, "The World of Your Spoon," of not an ounce of which do I recall. Fortunately they have an in-room coffee-maker and I had brought bananas with me for breakfast, so the morning wasn't a total loss. Well, that's what I thought until I saw Diosa's pictures. While I was lamenting my missing reading material and drinking pretty passable in-room coffee, the pirates were having scrambled eggs. I do so love scrambled eggs, as you may recall from previous journals. Ah well. At least I got to take a shower.

Photo: Mission
I swear I am not making this musical up. Being Sunday, I packed everything, pausing only long enough to irretrievably leave several items inside the room like my insulin, handed in my key and headed out to the Santa Maria. With my rolling bag Phydeux faithfully following, I strode purposefully off. On the way, I encountered an example of Cvltvre, as you can see at left. No, I did not misspell that (although I've no doubt that I've misspelled enough other things, so I can understand your confusion.) Tom Weller defines 'cvltvre' in his outstanding book, Cvltvre Made Stvpid. "What is 'cvltvre'? Not the same as 'culture' which a dish of germs has. Not the same as the anthropologist's 'culture,' which even people with bones in their noses have. No, cvltvre is something nobler, loftier, finer, thicker with pompous adjectives." (Weller, p. 6) Yes, if Evil Dead the Musical isn't an example of cvltvre, I certainly don't know what is.

I later learned, via Facebook - a great example of the anthropologist's 'culture' - that Michael Bagley was quite excited to have actually gotten tickets to this musical. One of his Facebook friends suggested he make sure to get seats in the 'splatter section.' (No kidding.) Ah...cvltvre!

Photo: Mission
Salmonious' cousin: Steve. On the way over, I spotted a squirrel by the park. Because there must always be squirrels in the Columbus Surgeon's Journals, I took a photo of him. (I'm really not sure why there must be squirrels in these journals, other than there always have been and I sort of like squirrels.)

Upon closely examinating of this photo, I discovered something most interesting about this squirrel - he has no ears! I thought about this for quite awhile, before arriving at the most logical explanation for this: this squirrel was around the day before. What do you mean, "So?" If you think about yesterday, something audibly horrible happened not once...not twice...but three times! Can you remember what it was? What do you mean, "No." Pay attention! The pirates had been singing yesterday! I'm convinced that as we launched into the third rendition of Happy Birthday, this squirrel chose to chew his own ears off rather than listen to it again. Can you really blame him?.

(For the record, I would like state here that there has been no photo-shopping of this squirrel photo. He appears exactly as he did on the sidewalk. Photoshopping would have been far too much work for a joke this stupid.)

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We now come to the surgeon's table. I have been really good about not talking too much about it, despite the fact that this is, indeed, the Surgeon's Journal. However, I must now talk about it, especially since I don't have a lot of other photos from Sunday.

Photo: Mission The patron's view of the Surgeon's Table

Photo: Diosa The patron's view of the Surgeon.

Above left, you see how the table looked to the patrons. It's actually quite like it usually looks, although I have acquired a number of new, more period-correct, items. As a result, some of the old ones have been rotated out of the display due to lack of space. Also missing (much to my chagrin) is the Barber's Shaving Bowl that Michael and Kate so kindly gave to me last year at the Santa Maria event. (It is missing because I broke it. I blame the box it was packed in although it was pretty much my own fault for the way it was packed.) You may notice the table is getting quite crowded, even with some of the tools taken out. Soon we will be opening Mission's Annex Table.

I also want to inject a bit of educational material into this tome. (For some reason, I always choose to do this with the May Santa Maria Journal.)

Photo: Mission
The left side of the Surgeon's Table.
Photo: Mission
The right side of the Surgeon's Table.

 

These two photos are an aerial view of the Surgeon's Table. Nearly every item has been hotlinked so that by mousing over it, you reveal a pop-up text box explaining what it is. You can also click on the items to open a new page that with more information about the item you have selected. This bit of wizardry took a devilish long time to do, so please feel free to spend lots and lots of time exploring it, if only to make me happy. (Or at least lie to me and say you did.)

Photo: Mission
The new Medium-sized Bone Saw Several Piracy Pub people and friends had provided me with new period surgical objects to be used in my display and I would be remiss if I didn't recognize them.

We begin with the magnificent Medium Bone Saw that Shay gave me last Christmas. She had her son, who is Commodore Swab on the Pyracy Pub, design and build this magnificent piece using information from a web page which is no longer there. Shay contacted the website owner in Italy to get the information that CS needed to put the all together. It is a truly magnificent piece of work and I can't even begin to guess how much time he put into the making of it.

wes1761 from the Piracy Pub did quite a bit of blacksmith work for me, creating not one, not two, not even three, but four spatulas, which were designed to be used to remove the hardened excrements from... people.. .when they were severely constipated. I really, really wanted a Spatula Mundani because it was the only instrument designed by John Woodall, author of the sea surgeon's book, the surgion's mate. So Wes made that and three of the others that Woodall pictured in his book. (You can read a little about his work on them and see a better photograph of them here.)

Photo: Mission
Trying to choose a new Spatula
Photo: Mission
A new Fleam Stick. Last, but certainly not least is the humble fleam stick made by madPete whom I met in cyberspace on the Piracy Pub and met in person at Pirates in Paradise in Key West in 2009. Fleam sticks look like little hardwood baseball bats used to drive fleams (fleams are different sorts of sharp, pointy blades) through the skin and veins of those under the surgeon's care who needed to be bled. Bleeding was a popular remedy from the time of Hippocrates all the way through the mid 1800s for just about anything that ailed you. madPete had the tools to make one for me and it filled that hole in my surgical gear collection for me. You can get a better look at the thing along with some of the fleams it would be used with here.

Before I leave the topic of the surgeon, I thought I'd share a couple of " stories from the road" with you. (Hmm. Maybe that should be "stories from the waves." Or perhaps, "tales from the river." Or even, "accounts on the account." Or maybe we should just stick with the road.) We begin with Thomas Alleman filling in for me when I was away from the Surgeon's Table (below left). As you may recall from the previous event, this rarely goes well. It takes many wasted years of reading 300 year old surgical manuscripts and hundreds of hours poring over eBay auctions to assemble a body of knowledge as useless as mine is on this topic. Fortunately, Thomas chose to restrict his explanation to what he understood on the surgeon's table.

Photo: Mission Thomas Explaining a Bullet

Photo: Mission Hair Care.

Photo: Mission A very curious young man quizzes your ship's surgeon.

Next (above center) we have an enthusiastic patron of the surgical arts. This young woman was a nurse who was most fascinated with all the surgical gear on the table. She was one of those medical people who liked to watch History Channel specials on medical stuff. (I do not understand this. I have found that the most enthusiastic fans of shows like E.R. and House are often medical people. Don't they get enough of that at work?) She insisted her husband take a photo of her using the period curling iron (as shown) as well as the horrific to contemplate dental pelican. I'm sure that will make a nice addition to her scrapbook.

Last, we have a young man who was full of questions. Actually, to be fair, he was full of one question that was dispensed every time I finished answering his last question like a black gum ball from a gum ball machine. That question? "What's this?" Then he'd point to something. Sometimes he didn't even wait for me to finish one explanation before asking about a different item. We did this about 15 times before his parents decided they had had enough surgical education for one day. (In the future, I will refer him to that hotlinked chart that you saw above. You knoow, the one I'm certain you went through very thoroughly.)

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Photo: Mission
The Hard Tackers Shanty Team giving us a rendition of "Singin' in the Rain" Like last May's Santa Maria event, the Hard Tackers Shanty Team were again on hand to serenade visitors to the ship. You may have noticed them in the background of the picture of the curious young boy in the previous series of pictures - the ones about me. (If not, go back and see if you can find them there.) This year they were placed aboard the ship, perhaps in part because it was raining cats and dogs when they arrived. This actually added atmosphere to the ship, although it made your surgeon have to give a little fuller volume to his presentation to be heard over them. Michael commented that he really liked having them on board. I agree. A real ship during the Golden Age of piracy probably would have had a great deal of music and singing because it helped to keep the men's spirits up and took their minds off the tedium and/or danger associated with some of the jobs they did.

Photo: Mission
The crowd watches gun firing A group of thirty people had pre-ordered tickets to see the ship on Sunday afternoon specifically so that they could see the 2:30 battle. Unfortunately, a downpour of rain scheduled itself for about noon and then decided it also wanted to stay for the battle too. Even though paddling around in cold rain in an open canoe while wearing heavy wool and linen clothing is great fun (if you're a masochist), it does not make black powder weapons very happy. You may recall from last year's Havre de Grace Surgeon's Journal how often black powder weapons misfire in the rain. (About 3 out of 4 times as I recall.) Too many such misfires can really effect a man's confidence in his gun. That can be devastating.

So Michael Bagley announced to the Sunday guests that, "The pirates are attacking the ship! We have to defend it." No one could argue with him because with the deluge of rain it was hard to see what might or might not be out on the water attacking the ship. The crowd gathered beneath the areas of the overhead canvas that weren't leaking so they could watch the pirates firing at the invisitble enemy. Despite the potential for performance-shattering misfires, our troops were bristling with confidence as they stepped up to the rail of the Santa Maria. Beneath the leaky canvas overhang they prepped their pieces. The tension was palpable as they took aim at the unseen pirates allegedly attacking the vessel. They waited for the signal. "Fire!" Michael shouted and they did. It was a near-perfect volley of five black powder guns! The gentlemen were now obnoxiously secure in the power of their weapons and fired two more volleys. It may not have been a full and proper battle, but it was a fine display made all the more miraculous by the gunner's ability to fire repeatedly in the rain.

Photo: Mission Preparing to fire the black powder guns

Photo: Diosa Firing the black powder guns

That is pretty much all I have for this narrative because I ran out of reasonably good photos. I left after the "battle" because I was meeting someone later that evening - about you will learn more shortly. Before I explain that, however, I thought I'd share some fancy photos with you. One of the reasons I don't have a lot of photos to work with is that several of the people who normally take narrative-friendly photos decided they were 'artistes.' While nice for Facebook profile photos, these sorts of shots are pretty much useless for narratives. (Hint, hint, artiste photographers. Maybe you can shoot a bit of both in the future? ;) )

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M.A. d'Dogge, alias Clint Beach, has been doing portrait photographs with fancy quotes and Photoshop effects for the past year or so. Below are some samples of his work from this event. You could have see even more photos of his from various pirate events on his page, but it's gone.

Photo: Clint Michael Bagley (Neat...)

Photo: Clint Thomas reading to Lilli (...sweet...)

Photo: Clint Jay Babcock Scaling the Ropes (...petite.)

Photo: Clint Blue Jessica Hammocking

Photo: Clint Shannon Gallatin Stomaching

Photo: Clint Ed Rembert (Serious...)

Photo: Clint Dan Needham (...imperious...)

Photo: Clint Trish (...mysterious)

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This leads us to the final official story for Sunday, which is actually only related to the pirates in a roundabout way. (For you purists, you may want to just skip this part, although it's your loss.) Those of you who read last Fall's Santa Maria Talk Like a Pirate Day may recall that I did not meet a lass named Tirzah there, although I took some photos of her that led to her joining Facebook and our becoming e-friends. She wasted... spent valuable time exploring the mess that is my website where she found the velociraptor prop web page. (There, I think that's more than enough offshoot web page links in one paragraph. I don't want you to overdose.)

Photo: Mission
The Lambeth Worm hangin' 'round in his well. Rather than recognizing that your ship's surgeon is probably insane and should be avoided at all costs, she got excited.

It turns out that she wanted to make a dragon, which is probably in the same family as the dinosaur. Thus the excitement So I advised her and she spent part of the fall and much of the winter working on her dragon: the Lambton Worm. She posted several photos of the finished product on her Facebook page after it had been installed in the museum, the Akron Fossils & Science Center. I decided I wanted to see what I had inspired and took off from the Santa Maria after the battle to drive to Akron and check out Lambie.

As it happens, her version of the Lambton Worm hangs out in wells and eats passing knights and curses members of the Lambton family with regularity. I told her how I made the raptor and gave her a reference for creating an infinitely deep well effect. With her mom's help, she created the dragon, the well, large carved stone walls and the display you see below left. Very spiffy, much more so than can be seen here.

Photo: Mission Tirzah and her Lambton display

Photo: Tirzah Lambie... Isn't she (or maybe he?) cute?

Photo: Tirzah The artiste poses with her work.

Her mom worked at the museum, which is normally closed on Sundays, so she let us in. It was quite an impressive display. She had hand-sculpted the dragon, its teeth and even purchased custom-made glass eyes for the beastie.

Photo: Mission
Cruellaclam...cuneiform...this ugly sucker here. Following that, we headed to Oliver Garden for dinner. I learned that she is a dyed-n-the-wool Browncoat, dedicated to the point that she named her car Jayne. She loves Dr. Who and attended Comicon in San Diego last year. She plans to go again this year, possibly dressed as Tinkerbell. (If we all clap our hands for her, perhaps that will bring Lambie back to life. Or maybe that's a bad idea.) Either way, I am sure she will make a perfectly lovely fairy if she decides to go that route.

Her mom is also an artist and was working on repainting a model of a Colacan... ColePorterskin... Koalacam...uh... dino-fish that she had created a few years ago. It too was going into the museum when finished.

Photo: Mission
After dinner, I was quite ready to be on the road. For some reason, I had thought Akron would be close to Columbus, probably because that was where I first met Tirzah and her mom. However, it was two hours in the absolute wrong direction. On the plus side of the balance sheet, this allowed me to enjoy Ohio's slightly cheaper than a king's ransom gas prices for a little while longer.

I don't want to say I was in a hurry, but as you can see from this actual live photo from the trip back, I was eager to get home and start on my journal. Those of you reading this fourth chapter almost a month after the event ended may be wondering why I bothered. (For the record, the speedometer was broke on the truck. I'm not sure it would have survived this speed in one piece.) Thus endeth the weekend.

Photo: Jessica
Here is the group shot of the re-enactors from this weekend. Standing, from left: Trish and Shannon Gallatin, Thomas Alleman, Ed Rembert, your surgeon, Jay Babcock, Mark Gist, Captain J. Galla, Dan Needham, the other Dan, Diosa/Michelle Murillo, Deb Collins, "Bloody Bess" Rieske, Rebecka (in a rare photo), and John Rieske. Sitting/kneeling, lying in the front, we have Michael Bagley (red kerchief), "M.A. d'Dogge" Clint Beach (grey socks), Margarita Pulgar, Janet Galla, Kate Bagley (in brown and white), Blue Jessica (in blue-ish) and Lillianna (in purple with a borrowed leather hat on her that costs over a hundred dollars - so you won't see it on her again.)

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