Front Porch Perspective

Avast, Maties!

Nope, I’m still not sitting on my front porch, laptop frozen to my lap. After I spot a first crocus, maybe I’ll try writing out there again. I’m old and maybe a bit ditsy – but not nuts.

Meanwhile, last week some whimsical friends did find a way to distract themselves from the winter. They organized a pirate party and held it at our house.

And what, you ask, is that? Why it’s an indeterminate number of adults, middle-aged or (in my case) decrepit. It centers on some slapdash costuming, eating and gulping ersatz piratical fare, singing appropriate chanties (“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest,” etc.) and, if adequately oiled, attempts to dance the hornpipe.

As to the last-mentioned, let Shakespeare nail it: “Oh, piteous spectacle!”
By luck, no clear photos survive, especially of the hornpipe. Several pirates might have to remain in disguise for years.

But the comestibles that the invading pirates hauled into our house – well, they were gob-smackingly, lip-lickingly grand.

Jim Atwell, Quaker minister and

retired college administrator, lives in Cooperstown.