Pirates of Paynetown 2010 Page Menu: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 E Next>>
Pirates of Paynetown 2010 - Bloomington, IN
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Chapter 1st: Speaking about the arrival of the Surgeon Mission at the
campsite; Meeting folks from last year; A completely gratuitous boat trip to the
camp store; Jay's new boat; Helping to perform the officious raising of
flags to start the event; Meeting a baby cockatiel; The arrival of the
Barnum and Thatcher's Circus; and A quiet evening.
Having safely managed to avoid driving into the water, I went back to find the road into the peninsula where the P.o.P. takes place. I snagged a primo parking spot so I could unload the surgical gear from its water-tight container. Feeling vaguely guilty, I promised the check-in tent I would move it once I unloaded, but, of course, I never did.
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I asked the folks at check-in where the Mercury crew was. They didn't know, so they directed
me to event organizer Nathanael Logsdon, (right, a believer in casual Fridays).
He took me over to their camp where I found Mark Gist and Dan Needham searching the horizon
for sails. (Above. Remember that in pirate tradition the first person to spot a prize gets
either the best pistol or best suit of clothes.) Our crew this weekend consisted of Ben, Mark and Mark's wife
Jennie, Kate and Michael Bagley (whom regular readers already know - the
rest of you will have to wait to meet them) along with Sam and Jay (whom you may be happy
you're not meeting yet.)
Michael Bagley told me about some people who had brought a cat wearing a sling and I knew that you readers would need to be informed about that, so I trotted over to see it (below left). The cat was named Kramer, although his behavior reminded me more of Neuman. Every time I visited him, he was in front of that battery-powered fan. His leg was broken when he landed on it badly, a ominous harbinger as you'll see. He was owned by none other than Michael and Diane Stevens, whom I met last year. (Below center - that's Michael on the bed. A true role model for Kramer.) Michael is very handy and was delighted to be able to show off his new treasure chest (below right).
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With my newfound knowledge of Kramer and my need for the sight of
treasure sated, I returned to camp only to learn that I had forgotten
my
fine new fish mug that Shay of the Keys had gotten for me at the
Lockhouse. Regular readers may be wondering what the heck it is with me
and mugs. I sincerely don't know. If any of you can figure it out,
please feel free to email me your explanation and I may feature it in an
upcoming Journal. Fortunately, Michael had brought the loaner mug which
I had used at Columbus
in May and Put-in-Bay in
June. Kate once again offered to give it to me permanently,
but I explained that if they did that I'd be bereft of both mugs at
some future event while my back-up mug hung out with the fish mug at
my house.
While we were standing about, Michael asked Nathan if Krista Graves (once again gratuitously shown below left.) was coming this year (he had found her name out last year for me so's I could put in in last year's Paynetown journal since she featured so prominently.) Alas, she wasn't, which meant no Phydeaux (below center). Yes, Catherine had brought Phydeux! There are clearly wheels within wheels at Paynetown. That was all we were able to learn, because Nathan had to leave to go play some strange game with Mike Dollinger and his Spare Van Tire (below right).
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If there's one thing I've noticed, it's that
Paynetown
is a boating event. Not a large, tall-ship boating event, but a
couple-of-pirates-out-in-a-starter-ship boating event. That's
how pirates usually began - a few guys rowing a small (often
stolen) boat looking for a larger boat to take and begin their
pirating career. This year, Jay Babcock decided to begin his water
pirating career in a somewhat legitimate way - by buying a small vessel
from Jay Henderson (that's it at right). He was practically bouncing up
and down with anticipation before he ducked into his
tent to change into swimming trunks. (Yes, swimming trunks. Boating
is all well and good, but no sense getting your period undershorts all
wet on the first afternoon.) So it was with a sense of pride and
excitement that Jay B. took his ship (which, if it had a name, I wasn't
aware of it) into the water (below left). He was pleased
to discover it also came with oars (below center left)
which only took him a few tries to figure out. He then proceeded to row
uphill (below center right - or it may have just been a
bad camera angle) and head out to tour fabulous Monroe Lake. He returned
with a huge grin on his face - a pirate boy and his first boat.
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Seeing Jay go off to his boat with joy spread across his chops, Mark
Gist got the idea to take his boat (the Firefly) from our
peninsula over to the store across the small bay. He insisted that this
was easier than walking in the heat (and it was hot), but I think it was
just that Paynetown Boat Fever that all the pirates get. But who am I to
point fingers? I asked to be allowed to go along. (It was an adventure!)
So Mark, Michael Bagley and I headed down to take the Firefly across the bay to the store. I had dressed carefully in my nice bright blue socks, but I could see that they were going to be a liability here with the lake and all (above). So in a prescient moment I removed them and took my place at the tiller (above right). Michael and Mark did all the heavy lifting and splashing while I sat there (above left and at left).
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The trip was mostly uneventful, probably because it was so short. We
arrived at the camp store dock (right) and meandered up to
the camp store (below left - exciting photo, isn't it?) It
proved to be just like every other camp store I've seen - raucous, each
shelf packed with items of no apparent similarity and overflowing with
junk food. Ah, civilization!
Michael and Mark made it their duty to find period correct hot dog buns, over which they debated extensively (below center left). Being along for the ride, I ambled around musing on the odd assortment of stuff, including (but certainly not limited to) a pair of pirate flip flops (below center right). These amused me because they reminded me of Red Jessi's pirate fleece pants from Searle's. Having finally decided upon the most period of the hot dog buns, Mark and Michael paid and we all piled back into the Firefly and pulled for home (below right.) Mission accomplished.
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Upon returning to camp, Michael and Dan Needham decided they would take
charge on making dinner. Jennie Gist usually serves as the cook at these
events, something which she does very well, but she had landed badly on
and twisted her knee during this trip. So she was off the cooking roster.
Dan and Michael set about getting the fire lit (below left).
The first thing you will notice is that there are two small black
boxes sitting at their feet. These are period barbecue grills (although
they are probably not called that.) You'll also notice that they
are sitting smack in front of a perfectly adequate modern park barbecue.
This was to be ignored all weekend. There mere sight of it caused
everyone to sneer and curl their lip (however that is done.) The Gists
and Bagleys had dragged those period barbecue grills all the way to Indiana
from Ohio, and, by God, they were going to use them! Not out of the
question for use were non-period Strike-a-Fire sticks (which can be
found between the plastic boats and turkey jerky in the camp
store.) The ends are coated to burn easily. While having a period
BBQ is all well and good, there's no sense in going crazy with the
concept. After a few false starts, Michael stood proudly, even cockily,
in front of his smoking BBQ.
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Following dinner (which was pretty good, despite Jennie not
being able to make it), Nathan asked us to fill in as the emergency flag
raising crew. The event was to be started by a crew raising the
British flag and a short speech the content of which Nathan forget to tell us. He'd have done it himself, but he
and Mike Dollinger were competing in the Indiana Spare Van Tire Rolling Contest.
They gave me a gun (which might as well have been a paperweight in my hands)
and Mark, Michael, Dan and I toddled over to the flagpole, toting our
guns (see Dan at right). Being something of a Happening,
I wanted someone to photograph this. I went over to a woman in a nearby
tent and asked her to photograph us raising the flag. It
turned out that she couldn't do that at the moment because she was
feeding a baby cockatiel with an eye-dropper (below left).
My, the amazing animals that you find at PoP! The cockatiel was the
offspring of a pair who were bored
with taking care of it. (I can see why - 'homely' is a generous adjective
in this case.) The nursemaid's name was Linda (below center) and
she and her husband were the proprietors of the Rose and Thistle
Apothecary (which I found out is code for "candy sellers.")
The cockatiel's home for the weekend was a bright red plastic bin (below right)
which they kept in their tent. She brought the bird because
"handling them makes them people friendly."
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But to point! The sated cockatiel was placed in his Fisher Price-like home allowing Linda to generously agree to take photos of the impromptu flag-raising ceremony. We did our best to line up and look official, but it's sort of tough when none of the supposed citizens are wearing socks. Worse, I didn't know how we were to hold our guns (even though I asked), so I decided to hold mine at parade rest while Dan held his at present arms.There was not much unity in this particular military squad. Fortunately, few people were paying attention (other than Linda and the cockatiel - whose eyes were still glued shut), so it was probably okay. Mark and Dan decided to fire their weapons to raise awareness of our little skit which raised a small group to watch. I still held my gun at rest while Dan held his at present while Michael got the old girl up. The Union Jack (or Union Jill if it was indeed an old girl) flew proud. Mark said some off-the-cuff thing about the Pirates of Paynetown being officiously open and fired his gun. We raised our hats and were done with it. I hear Nathan and Mike did well in their Spare Van Tire Rolling competition, but not well enough to move on to the Nationals.
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At our opening the event by raising the Union Jill, a group of
folks decided to start firing the cannons. In one of those rare
instances, I managed to catch a pretty sparky-looking firing (at
left.) Since such photos seem to be most treasured by cannon
photography enthusiasts, I was proud. I'd like to tell you that I
intended to take this photo so that I could give you details like the
shutter speed, F-stop, aperture and G-spot, but it was just a fluke. I'm not sure what
precipitated all this cannon fire. It was probably just because someone
had said they could fire the cannons, or in salute to the sunset, but I
like to think it was in honor of the arrival of the Thatchers (below
left.) They brought lots of stuff. Fortunately, they had an army of kids
and friends to unload it all. Of course, not everyone in the
Thatcher coterie was all that interested in unloading the van; Zach was
far more interested in ingesting Pop Rocks (below center).
To his credit, he did offer me some. I must say that Pop Rocks seemed
much better to me when I was Zach's age than they do now. Kind of like
way it used to fascinate me to listen to Rice Krispies snap, crackle and
pop in the cereal bowl at that age. Today I'd rather listen to the
microwave timer sound to let me know that my Morningstar Farms pretend
bacon is done.
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Eventually the Thatchers got their two large tents set up and connected
them with a fly. Looking at it all, I thought they they were trying to give
Callenish Gunner's Taj Mahal of tents a run for its money,
although they needed a bit more to do that. It was pretty well dark by then
(as can be inferred by my attempt to create a
William
Red Wake lantern moment at right.) The chandelier was a really classy touch (below
left.)
Back in the Mercury camp, the story telling (and thus the lies and silly innuendo) had reached a fever pitch. Kate Bagley arrived and began babbling about the zombie road like last year. It was apparently too much for her because she took Michael away and that was the last we saw of them. (I think she needs to take the day before off and come during the day. This zombie stuff can't be good for her. Honestly.) That left me with Mark, Jay and Sam, who were telling really horrific stories about...paddling boats (below right. It really is all about the boats at Paynetown, I'm telling ya'.) Horrific stories about boats didn't interest me much, so I bid everyone a good night and faced the zombie road alone.
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