Aaaaarggghhhh! Did you know September 19th is (was) “International Talk Like A Pirate Day”? A great day to hoist a few rums and beers with friends, grab yourself a good pirate nickname, cover one’s eye with a patch, and basically make a fool out of yourself.

Come to think of it, with the exception of the eye patch, you could be talking about a traditional Goodboys Invitational weekend….

As Quint would say, this isn’t like chasing bluegills or tommycocks, this is the real thing! So, rather than have my morning coffee I made myself a boat drink (Myers’s Rum, OJ, Bacardi Light Rum, Three Palms Pineapple Rum), then went here to and got my own pirate nickname (mine turned out to be “Sharkbait Doug Grimm”). I think I like The Great White Shank better…

BTW, my favorite Pittsburgh Pirate was Willie Stargell.

I felt a kinship with Jimmy Buffett when he sang his song “A Pirate Looks At Forty”:

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call
Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall
You’ve seen it all, you’ve seen it all

…Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin’ to plunder
I’m an over forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late

Of course there’s nothing wrong with the pirate mentality. Out here in “Pleasant Valley Sunday” Gilbert, AZ, where “rows of houses are all the same and no one seems to care”, I think it’s an absolute necessity to keep one’s self from going mad. Especially when your neighbor is pi$$ed at you ’cause you refuse to trim your bouganvillea that’s making eyes at his driveway and a lemon tree that – gasp!- has crossed a whole 8″ over the wall our properties share. What an a$$. Now there’s someone who needs to be hung from the poop deck in his skivvies and left to the sharks!

Aye, that’ll suit him fine. Aaaarrrghhhh!!!