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Michigan Pirate Fest, August 2012 - Grand Haven, MI
Photo: Borrowed
The poster woman for concern about children.
Chapter 6th: What about the children? Won't somebody please think about the children? Yes we can. A whole chapter featuring nothing but children and child-like reenactors from the event. Including kids in costumes, a number of eye patches, female and pink pirates (pink pirates are a special subset of female pirates), Ms. Jones, fighting, more fighting, skeleton pirates and some other kid-oriented things.
There were a lot of kids at this event. I mean there were a lot of kids. I suppose it had something to do with the event's tie-in to the library, which is a summer refuge for some kids. (At least in the eyes of their parents, it is... That way the house becomes a summer refuge for the parents.) There was also the trading cards that were available at the local businesses which encouraged youth involvement. Plus it was an opportunity to dress up as pirates. What kid doesn't want that? As you will see in the photos that follow, the kids grasped this opportunity with greedy, probably even sticky, hands.
 Photo: Dolphin Danie I am going to go way out on a limb and guess that this was a kid's costume contest |
 Photo: Dolphin Danie Dread Pirate Roberts... and son! |
If the children hadn't arrived in costumes of their own (and many seemed to have), there were lots of opportunities to procure costumes, hats, weapons and trinkets at the various vendors at the event. There was also RootJack Energy Drink available which is just what a kid needs when they're already excited about being around so many pirates. Zoom, zoom, zoom!
 Photo: Mission Robin Hood... with gun? |
 Photo: Mission Wish I was at sea |
 Photo: Mission Elizabeth Sparrow |
 Photo: Rootjack Kids, Nikki Sparrow and Rootjack Energy Drink. Look out! |
There was also a bunch of kids with eye patches. Trish had said that she was selling a lot of them and the evidence in the field supported this statement. You can't be a proper pirate without an eye patch, after all.
 Photo: Rootjack It's a good thing he's holding someone's hand... |
 Photo: Mission You COULD just darken one lens... |
 Photo: Mission "This display makes it hurt!" |
Photo: Mission
A band of sisters. (Did they color coordinate clothing or what?)
There were a lot of young girls dressed in pirate garb at this event. I've commented in the past on how curious I find it that so many girls are dressing up like a pirate these days, due in large part to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies I suppose. It gave girls a more significant role than they've sometimes had in the past.
Some of the girls were with the event, like the chromatic band seen at right, who were prowling the grounds all weekend. (They seem to be missing a girl in yellow garb. Yellow is a primary color in art school, so they should really recruit another gal to take that spot.)
Other girls were not with the event like the various young ladies you see in the photos below. They were just here to dress like piratesses and enjoy the ambiance of the event in their own particular way.
 Photo: Sos Boss Perhaps this ring will do. |
 Photo: Sergio Mazzotta "Red. My favorite flavor." |
 Photo: Dolphin Danie "Hmm. boys are really kinda' stupid." |
 Photo: Sos Boss Trouble awaits... |
There were also several pink pirates. Pink pirates are girls that dress in pirate fashion (more or less) but favor the distinctively non-pirate color pink. I like to point them out because I can't possibly imagine this happening during the golden age of pirates. Besides, it's cute. (Yeah, I admit it. But only this once.)
 Photo: Mission Pink tennis shoes! (OK, it's a stretch...) |
 Photo: Mission A pink pirate & her elephant purse |
 Photo: Mission Everyone knows it's windy |
 Photo: Sos Boss Pink a-plenty! |
Then there was Ms. Jones. (Name changed to protect the innocent. Actually, I just have no idea what her name was because she wasn't tagged on Facebook. So it's Henrietta Jones - Junior. (We named the dog Indiana.)) I had seen her walk by the surgeon's table and decided I wanted a picture of her because she was such a lovely young lady. So I got Carla to fill in while I stalked her with my camera. (This is actually how Chapter 5 came about - I was wandering around looking for this girl.) I eventually found her and she stood nicely while I photographed her as you see below left.
I may as well not have bothered to go to all that trouble as both photographers Sergio Mazzotta and Dolphin Danie (the two who seemed to take it upon themselves to serve as event photographers) got several photos of Ms. Jones. And theirs were actually better than mine, although at least she sort of looks her age in my photo.
 Photo: Mission Wandering |
 Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Ms. Jones - a mer-minnow by the mermaid pool |
 Photo: Sergio Mazzotta It's STILL windy |
 Photo: Sos Boss Can't see thru her hair |
Photo: Stolen
A better swordplay costume?
So now you're probably wondering where the section on the boys is at. Well it's here. Sort of. Actually, this section is about kids play-fighting and that usually means boys. (This is subject to change in the future, but for now we'll take gender stereotypes for 100, Alex.)
Having announced that this is about boys, we'll start off with pictures featuring co-ed fighting. In my defense, this was the safe fighting pen where kids were given those soft foam bats to whomp on each other with. It was being run by Shrek, which seems really odd to me. I don't recall Shrek espousing violence or sword-play, particularly. As I remember it, Shrek mostly seemed to want to be left alone. Perhaps this was his cousin, Drek.
The nice thing about this setup was that the parents could drop the kids off for a while and let them beat on each other with safe, foam swords while they wandered a little further down the path to the adult funland. (See the photo below right for one view of that playground.)
 Photo: Mission "Prepare your red sausages for combat!" |
 Photo: Mission Shrek watches the kids' melee |
 Photo: Rootjack Conveniently located just down the path |
Outside the special fighting area it was a different story. Here you could find any number of vendors to sell you plastic and foam swords so that you could keep your fighting where it belonged: in the street.
 Photo: Mission Two youngsters receive their weapons |
 Photo: Mission Baby's First Sword... aww. |
 Photo: Sergio Mazzotta Sibling rivalry takes an ugly turn. Hotheaded redheads! |
The folks at RootJack got some phun photos of Scott Ruess fighting with various young boys. It takes a true pirate to take on such fierce opponents.
 Photo: Rootjack Scott Ruess takes on the ship's twins |
 Photo: Rootjack Scott & a fierce lad cross blades |
 Photo: Rootjack A true pirate, Scott shows no mercy to the kld |
Of course, if a youngster really wanted to learn to fight, he had to go to the masters. Since the masters were all on a pilgrimage to Tibet, the youngsters had to turn to M.A. d'Dogge. I watched M.A. d'Dogge teaching a series of steps to the boy as pictured below left. It was really kind of interesting - he explained each move, the counter-move and why it worked. Then he ran the young man through the routine several times, again explaining the basis of moves. Then Billie ran out and fought with the kid using the moves that M.A. d'Dogge had rehearsed. The kid seemed pretty thrilled with it all.
 Photo: Mission Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust! *sproing* |
 Photo: Rootjack "If I can take M.A. d'Dogge out, I'll be the captain..." |
Photo: Pirated
"How could I be any cooler-looking? Honestly!"
There were quite a number of kids who appeared at my surgeon's table. My presentation is always a little challenging to do when it comes to kids. While I really do try to tone it down a bit with them in mind, you know how I am. I'm not always that good at deciding where to draw the line. What can I say? It's a little fun to see anyone turning a bit green - even little kids. (Horrible, I know.)
Still, I do try to be nice. In fact, what I've figured it is that it's really more important to be able to gauge the parent's reaction as much as it is the kid's. A kid will listen with interest to an awful lot without even raising an eyebrow. Their parents, on the other hand, will clap their hands over the kid's ears if they (the parents) get scared. (This probably makes the kids even more interested in hearing what I have to say. Well it does if they're anything like I was as a kid. Then again, look how I turned out...)
 Photo: Dolphin Danie Hey kid! Get away from that table and all those sharp... Oh! Oops! It's Mission. |
 Photo: Mission "Hand over the bone saw! Now!" |
Photo: Pirated
"How could I be any cooler-looking? Honestly!"
Speaking of your ship's surgeon, I was most pleased to see a number of young skeletons and skeleton pirates tramping about the grounds. It was a testament to how popular the first (and IMO, the best) Pirates of the Caribbean movie still is. As hard as it may be to believe, most of the kids (if not all of them) that you find in the photos below weren't alive when The Curse of the Black Pearl landed in theaters. (Well, most of them except the two big kids on either end of that row of photos.) So their theater experience would have been the awful 4th movie zombies or the stupid fish people pirates of Davy Jones. Phu-yuck! Kids today have no idea how lucky they are to have DVD players. When I was a kid, you had to buy glossy movie magazines to relive your favorite movie. And you had to walk uphill in the snow for three miles to the store to get that magazine. Both ways.
That bit of legend and lore aside, there were several skeleton pirates and I'm pleased to be able to offer some images of them below for your edification.
 Photo: Mission's Camera Another surgical patient |
 Photo: Dolphin Danie You can't kill the undead! |
 Photo: Mission Cheerful? |
 Photo: Mission Rogues a-plotting |
 Photo: Mark Gist Got ya' ya' monster! |
Then there was Flapjack, the Sos Boss Collective's pet monkey. Flapjack is the kid-friendly edition of Lob, who couldn't make it this weekend due to a speaking engagement he had at Brigand's Grove. ("Fling poo at you, I do! Flinging poo! Nasty people are not treating Lob as goodly as they should!") Flapjack spent most of his weekend hanging out at the Kid's Tent.
 Photo: Mission Flapjack waiting for lunch |
 Photo: Sos Boss No! I must resist typing it... |
 Photo: Rootjack Flapjack and a rather Spanish-looking pirate friend |
Photo: Sos Boss
A youngster shaking Shannon's hook
Photo: Mission
"I'm king of the Michigan Pirate Fest!"
And so on...
This chapter could go on for quite a bit longer as there were a lot of kids at this event as I mentioned. Since no photographer anywhere (including your author) can avoid taking a picture of a cute kid, there are also a lot more photos of them floating around on the web from this event. But we have to keep moving because otherwise I won't finish this Journal before the next event begins and then I'll get completely confused.
So I thought I'd close this chapter with a few last photos that don't fit quite so squarely into categories as some of the previous ones.
 Photo: Sos Boss "Ah! A renaissance pirate's tool!" |
 Photo: Sos Boss "Here no! I can show you how to haul away this Joe guy!" |
 Photo: Mission Training Rover in Scotland. |