Capn Bob

I had missionary once. All that fuss only to find out it really does taste just like chicken...

Well, right now, I got the Cuba-US World Cup Qualifier soccer game on, and I've just finished creating and uploading some pix into my all new photo gallery. Go see it...if you know what's good fer ye, ye swab! Marcus Beasley just scored 1st point, 11 minutes into the game...

We had weather like that when I was living in Texas and Oklahoma...

And now I got me copy of Kings of the Sea, so I was listening to that on the way into woik...

I got my order placed a while ago, and am looking forward to its release. I can still remember seeing this on Wonderful World of Disney, and to be sure, Pat is wonderful as the good Rev. Syn Syn...what a name for a doctor of religion!)

Here inland from the fourth coast (that be the Great Lakes), in NE Ohio, its been pretty smutty all day. Damp, wet, rainy, drizzly, and a whole lot of no fun at all. Currently overcast and 60 degrees of mercury. At least its not snowing...yet.

Well, scupper me hide...I should have known someone else would be recommending me own favorite pirate fiction, which is "The Pyrates", by George MacDonald Fraser. Me own copy is more tattered and torn than a fourth-hand treasure map. Raise a cheer for Col. Tom Blood, laddies! And the late and much missed Mr. Fraser also wrote the Flashman series of books...19th century, to be sure, but still cracking good reads...

Ahoy, avast, and Wotcher, mate...

Currently listening to the ventilation system over the Adult Services desk. Aye, I be stuck woiking, instead of doing...well, anything else. But driving in to work, I was listening to African Dawn, some very nice Afropop, sung in what I *think* is kwaZulu...but I got Kings of the Sea on order...

Well, sadly, I got no pix of me scrimshaw. I had been doing that back in the 1980's, long before the Age of Digital Photography. Most of my work I sold off to some shops up in Vermillion OH. I might have one or two pieces, done on plastic slabs, laying around someplace. I'll have to see if I can run up some pix of my flintknappery...I have a bin full of my projectile points, of varying quality and material (everything from Flint Ridge flint to obsidian, fiber optic glass, and beer bottle bottoms) I *have* been playing around, in me mind, wi' the idea of taking up scrimshaw again. Found an online source of working material (read: fossil ivory) that is more or less affordable. But won't be starting anything up again til next year. Most of my work back then was Great Lakes ships, and I'll likely still be focusing on that should I start back with the scrimshanding... As a side note, I found a small ivory scrap among some of my father's papers. I suspect he picked it up in Vietnam. I'm in the process of cleaning it up, but I don't know if I'll work it...its got a nasty scratch across the face. If I can't get rid of the scratch, I'll just polish it up, drill a small hole, and use it in a dangle, making up a good lie about how I obtained it. ("Last week, I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. What he was doing in them, I'll never know...")

The cap'n doffs his hat to a lady (he knows his manners, he does...), buys her the sticky sweet stuff requested, and sez: "Why, thankee most kind for the welcome...and since ye be a discernin' lass...I got me right here a couple o' tickets for the newest smash hit, called "Beggar's Opera", now showin' at the French Carriage Drive In..."

Well...thar be the one about the pirate what tried to get into the Gold Depository at Fort Knox but couldn't read the sign...but that be a short story, altho it does end wi' a bang. I grew up in the Army, and when we finally retired from the forces and moved up to NE Ohio and Civilian-Land, I was amazed to learn there were people what thought Fort Knox was just something in a James Bond movie. Bloody civilians. We (me folks an' me, that is) lived in Fort Knox from 1968-1969. Saw the Gold Depository and the Patton Armor Museum both, and of the two places in the fort, the Patton Museum was much more interesting. Also more welcoming. The Gold Depository is sort of a squat wedding cake shaped building with a decided perimeter around it with signs printed in large and very unfriendly letters proclaiming if you are stupid enough to go beyond that point, the MPs will fire *one* warning shot over yer head. The next shot fired will be aimed just a little lower. MPs are known for firing first and asking questions never, and also for their lack of humor. The fact that I can relate this proves that, whatever people might say about me, I was never *that* stupid. Okay, not much of a pirate story, and if you want one, you'll have to wait for me to make one up...errr...for me to get sober enuff to remember...

I keep offering to use me fleam at work to provide free medical care, but no one seems interested. They just look at me and shudder. Why?

What be my favorite piratical fiction? Why, mateys, that be an easy one. It would be The Pyrates, by George MacDonald Fraser, same guy what wrote the Flashman series of books...and also did the screenplay for the 3/4 Musketeers (the 1975 one with Michael York, Oliver Reed, and Frank Finley). Don't be going into the book looking for historical accuracies...its not that kind of pirate story. But there's heroes, anti-heroes (Irish, at that), evil villains, battles between great towering sea castles, duels, rescues, harrowing escapes, lost jungle cities, and, oh yes...pirates.

Now I got me a personal interest in this project, because I got a distant relation in jolly Ned Teach's crew...at least, I *think* I do. One Joseph Curtice, who fell in defense of piracy when Maynard did his thing. If indeed there is a relationship, its likely he's a distant cousin (from way back, of course). Me own family's been on these shores since 1632...but, I note...the name Joseph Curtiis crops up from time to time. Not the same fellow, tho...date of death is all wrong. Unless, of course...my ancestors know something I don't...

I saw it mentioned in a copy of the Poopdeck newsletter, and placed it on personal order thru my workplace...

Depends on the rock, Bess...if its obsidian or flint, I'm a-keeping it. Treasure to the likes of me. But tho I be but a lowly bilge rat in this here crew, I appreciate whatever scuttlebutt you can drop in our dainty shell-likes (ears, that is...)

We got some of the Sabatini books at me library, and of course, I tried to get into Captain Blood. However, I found Sabatini's style stilted and forced...the words don't flow all natural-like anymore...

:bangs cutlass on table and shouts, "Me grog, wench?! Where be me grog?!": Well, since it seems I'm not doing anythin' here til I get me drink...I be Mad Capn Bob, the Official Pyrate of Cuyahoga Falls Library, currently livin'...marooned, more like...in Akron OH. If it be that any of you lubbers readin' this be residing in NE Ohio, fire me a shot cross me bows (all right, drop me an email) I work in a library, which I suppose makes me a librarian (that be just me cover), and an educator (what, *me*?!). I'm also a flintknapper (and that be a whole different topic, if you be wantin' to know about that...), and two of me favorite toys are me atlatl and me sling (well, I can't properly be firing off me flintlocks in the city, now can I?) I grew up in the US Army, me ol' dad being thru WW2, Korea, and Vietnam, and me lving in places what include Fort Sam Houston, Fort Knox, and Illesheim Germany. Oh yeah...I've also done a fair share of scrimshaw in the past. I also fancy trips to Walt Disney World, wherein I re-pyratize meself at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. In fact, I have plans to be returning to WDW at the end of the year, barring any family emergency. I first entered the wonderful world of pyracy way back when I was 5 or 6, whenever *that* was. One of the first books I can remember reading was a kiddie book about pirates, even had that well known engraving of Black Bart Roberts hisself on the back cover, you know the one...him at Whydah, in Africa. And here's me grog...so silence tween decks while I drink...