UPDATE: Here's an online quiz I came across to test your pirate knowledge: Encarta pirate quiz
A funny coincidence has occurred to me on this date for the last few years. Today, my dad's birthday, is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Perhaps this is just dumb luck on his part. He's probably entitled to free admission to various pirate-themed amusement parks and entertainment venues today, not to mention free meals (or at least pirate-ship-shaped desserts) at the many related restaurants across the land. But I wonder if there isn't more to this: perhaps my father was a pirate in a previous life, or earlier in this life for that matter.
I do recall an occasion when I cheekily sent him an e-mail teasing him about the fact that his birthday coincided with Talk Like a Pirate Day. He never responded to the e-mail, which could lead to only two logical conclusions: either he was too busy to write back and didn't really care, or he was avoiding the subject because of some secret he feared I might mine out of him.
I don't know why he would be ashamed or hide such a past from me and the rest of the family. I would openly embrace his former life of seafaring and enemy ship raiding, not to mention take more than a passing interest in my heritage, perhaps enlisting in the nearest Sons of Reformed Pirates chapter. I can just picture him, one foot propped on the side of an old wooden ship as it bounced along in the waves, donning his billowy pants and bearing his now farmer-tanned torso to full sunlight in the days of his pirating youth.
Well, I suppose now as a Baptist minister, he couldn't very well let his earlier days of raping and pillaging be known, if that were the sort of marauder band with which he had been affiliated. On the other hand, I'd like to think maybe he was of the Dread Pirate Roberts variety -- developing notoriety and a legend to be feared and revered, yet in reality sparing the lives of doe-eyed young men in the name of true love. And then that would also explain why he must keep his past a secret, as now the individual who has taken over the role of said legendary pirate would not want it known that the name is actually a mere legend passed from one man to another over history.
Or, maybe he was a software pirate.
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2 comments:
If your dad starts preaching about Bootyronomy, Land Lubber Leviticus, or the Book of Maaaarrrrk, let me know, because that's a sermon I would want to hear. (Ba-dum-dum! I'll be here all week, folks! Don't forget to tip your waitress.)
I have my official ratebeer.com userpic set up in honor of talk like a pirate day. http://www.ratebeer.com/View-User-3782.htm
There's also an international hooty hoo day. Kim and I have a friend who actually says that on occassion (especially after a few beers), so we always get a Hooty Hoo Day E-card. The Outkast song Hooty Hoo isn't one of their best, though.
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