Yo Ho Ho

Out on my walk yesterday, I noticed a children's birthday party under way in a back yard. Maybe it had been delayed from last weekend or maybe the parents were sticklers for having the event on the day itself. In any case, the theme was pirates.

My brother Jim had an enthusiasm for pirates, once upon a time, so much so that one of his birthday cakes had a pirate theme, complete with pirate figures, a little sailing ship, a toy treasure chest, and maybe some plastic toy palms. Some kind of passably edible blue goo represented the ocean. I've never seen any other cake like it, before or since.

The romanticizing of pirates has been going on a long time, of course, long before electronic entertainment. But still I have to marvel at a list like this. Scrolling past the familiar and unfamiliar titles, I also noticed a fair number of them were made in Italy. So not only did the Italian film factories make Hercules movies and spaghetti westerns at one time, they churned out pirate movies. What could we call them? Pasta pirate movies?

One other thing: I was reminded by the party that Friday is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Just another thing we have to thank Dave Barry for. Now if he would only promote National Gorilla Suit Day.