A Pirate's Life for Me!

I love Pirate Week, and I suppose it’s because I’ve always had an affinity for pirates.  They’re cool.  If you can pull off wearing an eye patch and have a parrot on your shoulder, while speaking like you have gravel in your mouth, you must be high on the cool scale!

The subject of some of my favorite books and movies when I was in elementary school (yes, that was over fifty years ago) involved pirates.  I read Treasure Island so many times the book fell apart.  In my world, Wallace Beery is still the quintessential Long John Silver.  I know from reading countless books and articles, and from watching documentaries, that the pop culture view of pirates doesn’t match the genuine pirate.  But, that doesn’t matter at Doublecreek.  We’re not shy about taking liberties with reality.

This week at Sing-Song, we had pirates.  Now, the only reason you would know they were pirates was because the narrator told you they were pirates.  We had some characters wearing the traditional black tri-cornered hat with the skull and crossbones on the front.  However, we didn’t have enough to go around.  Some characters wore pitch helmets, top hats and a wig.  We didn’t have a parrot, so a counselor dressed up like one.  I would try to describe our human parrot, but any description I would come up with would not do the sight justice.

I have to point out, that I learned something this week.  Using a formula that seems somewhat dubious, I learned that my pirate name would be “Sticky Slappy Smuggler.”  While that’s not a great name, it’s certainly better than Fishy Creepy Ratbreath.  The name I like the most, is Cesar Von Dark Water.  Now, to have that name, I would need to have a first name starting with the letter “X,” ends with the letter “R” and a last name that starts with the letter “U.”  Can you figure out the code for finding out your pirate name? [To see what your pirate name would be, just scan on down this newsletter to see the code.]

What’s not hard to figure out, is how to have fun with the pirate theme.  We’ve spent the week looking for fake treasure, wearing fake costumes, and telling fake pirate stories.  One thing we don’t have to fake at Doublecreek, is having a good time!

We have as much fun as the irate you find in books by Robert Luis Stevenson, except you don’t have to sail the Seven Seas looking for treasure.  We find our treasure just off Doublecreek Drive!

-Joe Ray

To view our video from Pirates Week, go to the following link:  https://vimeo.com/227411889