There's no explaining why something catches my fancy and latches hold from time to time. None whatsoever. On my recent trip to New Orleans my friends and I came across a large contingent of pirates carousing in the French Quarter. Geoff struck up a conversation with a particular female pirate as she stumbled across Decatur Street and we learned the tale of this crew (What's the word for a collection of pirates? I'll go with crew for now.).
It seems there is some national or international group of hundreds of people who are way into pirate lore, culture, history, dress, etc. They come from all over and meet annually (for the last few years anyway) in New Orleans. They dress in full regalia period true costumes, carry cutlasses and boarding axes, and speak in pirate-ese. They also apparently take pride in emulating real pirates habit of drinking to excess.
Later that evening we crossed paths with subsets of pirates enjoying their bacchanal throughout the Quarter. My friend Paula even had her picture taken with a gaggle of them dressed in pink pirate gear. Hmmm. Predictably and happily these folks didn't create much of a stir in New Orleans. It is New Orleans after all and I'm sure they see a lot stranger things than a hundred pirates marching down the street all the time.
During our questioning of the female pirate of Decatur Street (What was her name?) Geoff, ever the scholar, asked her what book or books she might recommend to learn more about real pirates beyond what she taught us in her brief street side lecture. She tauted a book called Under the Black Flag, by David Cordingly.
Well, since I sit here with relatively little to do I wandered into the library and checked out the book. I also checked out another called Empire of Blue Waters and read them both this past week. So if you ever have any questions about pirates just ask me.
The first book is a rather academic factual history of piracy through time and across the world but primarily focusing on the golden age of pirates in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. I learned a lot but found most of the book rather dry. Nothing like a table in one appendix listing all the major piracy trials and subsequent hangings. Suffice to say they hanged a lot of pirates in the early 1700's.
The second book was much more entertaining. It chronicled the life and times of one Henry Morgan or Wales and later Jamaica, one of the most accomplished privateer/pirates in history. Morgan, BTW, would cut off your head if you called him a pirate and did in fact sue the author of a book about him who did so. Privateering was, apparently in his eyes, much more respectable. He eventually became so respectable he was knighted and made lieutenant governor of Jamaica.
If you like history and adventurous tales of the high seas mixed with Pirates of the Caribbean I recommend the book wholeheartedly. Jolly good. Jolly Roger good.
I think my pirate phase is over though. I may seek out another book or two but I think I've got the gist of it. Reading these did make me think back to one of my longtime fantasies; learning to sail, buying a boat, and cruising around the Caribbean during my retirement. Doesn't that sound like fun? Sort of a Jimmy Buffett thing? Now if I can just convince Stephanie how much fun it would be we can set sail as soon as Connor leaves the house. And I learn how to sail a vessel I'd trust in the open ocean. To be continued.
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