A non-pirate non-fiction story for your enjoyment

My Adversarial Relationship with my Christmas tree.

By Laura Nelson

            My first two Christmas trees were my parent’s cast-offs. The first one was a saggy, tired thing that had been in the family since I was a girl. I have only vague memories of our previous trees. I was actually quite fond of my saggy Christmas tree and it served me well for about 9 years.

            Then my parents bought themselves a smaller tree and offered their “old one” to me. This one was sturdier and prettier, so I accepted it.

            I took my old one out and set it in its box in front of my apartment complex’s dumpster. The next time I looked it was gone. I hope it served someone else as faithfully as it did me.

            The second of my parent’s cast-off trees was 6 feet tall stayed with me for 15 years. That is, until Christmas Eve of 2011.

            That year I had finished all of my Christmas preparations and had sat down at my computer to enjoy a pleasant evening sending a few last Christmas messages before calling it a night.

            While I’m typing away I hear a crack and then a soft whooshing sound behind me. Puzzled, I turn around in my chair to find my Christmas tree keeled over in the middle of the living room floor. The cracking noise had been the sound of the stand breaking, as I discovered when I bent over to try and stand it back up again. It would never stand on its own again.

            Luckily for me it was early enough in the evening that K-Mart hadn’t closed yet, and I was able to pick up a bulky, clunky-looking tree stand that would have to do.    

             Unfortunately, this new tree stand was designed for real trees, not artificial ones. It was deeper than the one that came with the tree, since it was designed to hold water. In order to make it work, I had to remove the bottom row of branches and try to re-distribute all of the decorations on the tree.

            The people who saw the tree post-accident thought it was pretty. (Sigh of relief.) And while I was grateful I had managed to make it work out, I wished they could have seen it without the accident, because it was much prettier in its original configuration. And so I made it through that Christmas with my jury-rigged tree.

            After the holiday rush, I bought a new tree on sale. It was a pretty medium-green color with cute little fake pinecones on the branches. I was hooked.

            I made a decision that year that after many years of squeezing a 6 foot tree into my small apartment that I only wanted a 5 foot tree. The salesman also assured me that he would make doubly sure that the tree I got actually had pine cones on it, because sometimes the manufacturer left them off.

            A week later when I went to buy the tree I was waited on by a different salesman. He wasn’t as nice, but he assured me that the tree would have the pinecones on it, just like it said on the box.

            The holiday season was past, so I carried my new tree home and placed it in the back of the closet for next year.

            My old tree was disassembled bit by bit and taken down to the garbage can in lots. I hated to waste it like that, but I could not in good conscience put out a broken tree even if it was free.

            So we come to 2012. I take the new tree out of the closet. Problem #1 raises its head immediately. Instead of the 5 foot tree I thought I had gotten, the box says 6.5 feet.  So this tree is even bigger and will take up even more room!

            Unfortunately, it has been a year since I bought it, so I figure there’s no way I am going to be allowed to exchange it. I console myself at the thought of the store giving me the larger, more expensive tree and probably selling the smaller tree I wanted to someone who thought they were getting my 6.5 foot tree.

            So I unbox the tree and Problem #2 promptly raises its head. There are no pinecones on this tree. Nor are there any in the bottom of the box that I can put on it, as the second salesman so glibly assured me when I bought it. I am not happy.

            But the tree is still pretty even without the pinecones, so I struggle for an hour to assemble the tree stand so that I can put my new tree up.

            Yes, I said an hour. My previous two trees (and the one I bought separately after the accident), had been simple to assemble. Those were all put together in just a few minutes. Not this one! We fought for an hour before that stand finally consented to be assembled. The rest of the tree was fairly simple to assemble.

            And now we come to the adventure of stringing up the lights. I began getting out my Christmas lights to discover that nearly all of my light strings had begun to feel their age and were no longer functioning. So I went out and bought a few strings of new LED lights.

            Except that LED lights work on a different principle then the traditional lights do, meaning that my flasher plug has now been rendered useless.

            I have always enjoyed having some of my lights flashing and some of them not. For me, a tree with lights that just sit there is boring. So not being able to have any flashing lights on my tree is not acceptable.

            Unfortunately for me, I soon discover that there is no such thing as buying a string of LED lights with an optional flasher plug. You have to spend the big bucks on a “light show” package.

            Eventually I find a selection of these at my local K-Mart. K-Mart is a handy store to have within walking distance of my house.

            So I take my new “light show” home, and take it out of the box. I string it on the tree. Everything is fine and good at this point. Then I try to choose which lighting effect I want.

            There are eight choices. But it is not so simple as click, click, click from one to the next so you can see the shows and decide which one you want.

            The selector is too flat, so it is difficult to get a good grip on it. Once you do get a grip on it, it is so stiff and tight that it takes a major act of strength to move it from one option to the next.

            So by the time you’ve been to all eight options, your fingers hurt, your hand is sore, and you are practically in tears. But you hold yourself together in order to move back two selections to the one you’ve decided on. In the process you have to pass back over a selection that doesn’t appear to work.

            At least with the second string I knew which selection I wanted and I was able to avoid further strain on my hands and move the selector directly to the option I want. I finish the tree off by stringing it with the remaining solid strings of LED lights, and end up with a pretty nice balance of lights.

            And so we come to 2013, and it is time once again to get the Christmas decorations out.

            I start by placing my never-disassembled tree stand where I want the tree. (I didn’t dare take the thing apart after the fight I had with it last year.) Theoretically, the tree should just pop in the stand, I can tighten the bolts, and it will all be ready to go.

            And that is pretty much what happens. The center pole slides right into place with a plop. And the branches, which are on hinges on the center pole and fold up for storage, promptly unfold, right on top of my head.

            So here I am sitting on the living room floor, trying to tighten the bolts on the tree stand, being attacked by unfolding branches which I have to reach around to get at the bolts. All of this while trying to keep my head up under the weight of the branches.

            Luckily for me I learned the rule of righty-tighty many years ago while working for the cable company and talking people through connecting cables to the converter box. Meaning I can get the bolts tightened even though I can’t really see them.

            In the process, the unfolding branches also knock some things off of the coffee table. So the tree has to be moved around so it is not interfering with everything else in the room.

            The tree gets assembled, it is time to put the lights on, and then some ornaments and garland.

            But all of that is another story. I have had enough adventures with the tree for one day.

           

           

    
                  

               

The Unknown Survivor

Part One

 

By Laura Nelson

 

To those who study pirate history, there were only two survivors of the wreck of the Whydah Galley commanded by Sam Bellamy in April of 1717: Thomas Davis, a Welsh carpenter, and John Julian, a Miskito Indian pilot. But for those who are fans of Cape Cod folklore concerning the Whydah, there exists the possibility that there was a third survivor, who's name remained unknown even upon his death.

The most famous reference to him is made by Henry David Thoreau, who writes:

“In the year 1717, a noted pirate named Bellamy was led on to the bar at Wellfleet by the captain of a snow which he had taken, to whom he had offered his vessel again if he would pilot him into Provincetown Harbor. Tradition says that the latter threw over a burning tar-barrel in the night, which drifted ashore, and the pirates followed it. A storm coming on, their whole fleet was wrecked, and more than a hundred dead bodies lay along the shore. Six who escaped shipwreck were executed.'

“At times to this day,” (1793), says the historian of Wellfleet, “there are King William and Queen Mary's coppers picked up, and pieces of silver called cob-money. The violence of the seas moves the sands on the outer bar, so that at times the iron caboose of the ship [that is, Bellamy's] at low ebbs has been seen.' ”

“Another tells us that, 'For many years after this shipwreck, a man of a very singular and frightful aspect used every spring and autumn to be seen traveling on the Cape, who was supposed to have been one of Bellamy's crew. The presumption is that he went to some place where money had been secreted by the pirates, to get such a supply as his exigencies required. When he died, many pieces of gold were found in a girdle which he constantly wore.' ”¹

April 26, 1717, started out like any other day for the pirates. In the morning, they captured the Mary Anne, “a pink with more than 7,000 gallons of Madeira wine on board... and the Fisher – a small sloop with a cargo of deer hides and tobacco, captured that afternoon,”²

 

In the evening a storm began to roll in, heralded by a dense fog.³ “According to eyewitness accounts, gusts topped 70 miles [113 kilometers] an hour and the seas rose to 30 feet [9 meters].⁴ The accident was best expressed by Thomas Davis in his deposition before trial:

The Ship being at an Anchor, they cut their Cables and ran a shoar, in a quarter of an hour after the Ship struck, the Main-Mast was carried by the board, and in the Morning She was beat to pieces. About Sixteen Prisoners drown'd, Crumpstey Mast of the Pink being one, and One hundred and forty-four in all.⁵

“Although the beach was just 500 feet away, the bitter ocean temperatures were cold enough to kill the strongest swimmer within minutes. Other crew members were crushed by the weight of falling rigging, cannon, and cargo as the ship, her treasure, and the remaining men on board plunged to the ocean floor, swallowed up by the shifting sands of the cape.”⁶

When local residents arrived on the shore the next morning “more than a hundred mutilated corpses lay at the wrack line with the ship's timbers.”⁷

So it is entirely conceivable that someone else could have survived the wreck and remained undiscovered.

To be continued…

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clifford, Barry and Kenneth J Kinkor, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007.

Thoreau, Henry David, Cape Cod, Parnassus Prints, Inc., Orleans, Massachusetts, 1984

“The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H Baer (2:289-319). Pickering and Chatto, 2007.

 

ENDNOTES

1Thoreau, Henry David, Cape Cod, Parnassus Prints, Inc., Orleans, Massachusetts, 1984, pp 186-187

2Clifford, Barry and Kenneth J Kinkor, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007, p 130

3Clifford, Barry and Kenneth J Kinkor, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007. In Real Pirates, Barry Clifford describes the storm: “An Arctic gale from Canada was colliding with a warm front moving northward from the Caribbean. Their confluence produced one of the worst storms ever to strike Cape Cod. (p 130) “Technically known as an occluded front, the warm and moist tropical air is driven for miles upward where it cools and falls at a very high speed, producing high winds, heavy rain, and severe lightning.” (p 262)

4Donovan Webster, “Pirates of the Whydah,” in National Geographic Magazine (May 1999).

5“The Trials of Eight Persons Indited for Piracy” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H Baer (2:289-319). Pickering and Chatto, 2007, p 318

6Clifford, Barry and Kenneth J Kinkor, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007, p 131

7Donovan Webster, “Pirates of the Whydah,” in National Geographic Magazine (May 1999).

 

 

John Brown - The Pirate with the Ordinary Name

                

Part Two

On Friday evening, November 15^th, 1717, the six pirates were led to their execution. While still in jail the pirates were ministered to by Cotton Mather, of Salem with trial fame. Rev. Mather ended up ministering to many pirates, among them William Fly.

                Unfortunately, he waited to record the conversations he had with them on their way to the gallows after their execution, so his words and theirs must be taken in the light of Rev. Mather’s memory, rather than as conversations recorded as they happened.

CM: Brown, In what State, in what Frame, does thy Death, now within a few Minutes of thee, find thee.

JB: Very Bad! Very Bad!

CM: You see your self then a most miserable Sinner.

JB: Oh! Most Miserable!

CM: You have had an Heart Wonderfully hardened.

JB: Ay, and it grows harder. I don’t know what is the matter with me. I can’t but wonder at my self?

CM: There is no Help to be had, any where, but in the admirable SAVIOUR, whom I am now to point you to. Behold an Admirable SAVIOUR so calling on you, Look to me and be Saved. O Wonder call! Salvation to be had for a Look!

JB: Ay, But I can’t Look!

CM: Ah poor, sad, lost Creature, Look for help to Look! But mind; What I say unto you. Set your Heart unto these Things, They are your Life! You are to Look unto your SAVIOUR, in all his Offices, for all His Benefits, you would hope to be received by a SAVIOUR, who Receiveth Sinners.

                First, you must consider your SAVIOUR, as a Priest; and you must say to Him, O my SAVIOUR, I Rely upon thy Blood, that I may be cleansed from all my Sin!  Is this the Language of your Soul?

JB: Yes, Syr.

CM: You must Consider you SAVIOUR then also as your Prophet; and you must say unto Him; O my SAVIOUR, Teach me thy Ways; and let not a Deceived Heart be my Ruine at the last! Is this also the Language of your Soul?

JB: Yes, syr.

CM: You must now Consider your SAVIOUR as your King; and you must say unto Him; O my SAVIOUR; Enter into my Heart, Set up thy Throne there; Let thy Law be written there. Subdue all the Enmity of my Carnal Mind against GOD. Cause me to Love Him! Is this the Language of your Soul?

JB: Yes, syr.

CM: Oh! I wish it may be so. I take notice, you have your Prayer-Book with you Forms of Prayer, may be of use to those who need the Assistance. You have had such put into your Hands; and you have also had the Bible bestow’d on you, with Leafs folded unto Psalms; proper for you to turn unto Prayers. But after all, A Soul touched with a sense of your Condition, and fired with the Sight of what all are and what you want, and what our SAVIOUR is willing to do for you, will cause you to Pray, beyond what any Forms in the World can do. I am jealous, that what you read sometimes, is rather for an Amusement, than from any real and Lively Sentiment raised in you; For some of the Prayers you Read, are not pertinent unto your Condition. Friend, Make that Prayer, O Lord, I beseech thee deliver my Soul! Make that Prayer, O Lord, Gather not my Soul with Sinners!  Make that Prayer, God be merciful to me a Sinner! These are Great Prayers, though Short ones Great Prayers, when they proceed from an Heart broken before the Lord.

JB: Oh! God be merciful to me a Sinner!

CM: A Sinner. Alas, But, I pray, What more Special Sins,  Ly now as a more heavy Burden on you?

JB: Special Sins! Why, I have been guilty of all the Sins in the World! I know not where to begin. I may begin with Gaming! No, Whoring, That Led on to Gaming; and Gaming Led on to Drinking; and Drinking to Lying, and Swearing, and Cursing, & all that is bad; and so to Thieving; an so to This!

CM: Your ought no to Dy Warning of all People, against these paths of the Destroyer.

                I will say to you, but this one thing more. GOD has distinguished you from your Drowned Brethren by giving you a Space to Repent, which was denied unto them. I am Sorry you have made no Better use of it. It may be, the Space has been given, because GOD may have some of His Chosen among the Six Children of Death. God forbid, that the Space must be of no use to you, but only to aggravate you Condemnation, when you appear before Him.

                When they reached the gallows, the Minister of the City made a Prayer. The prayer concluded with a supplication “For our Sea-faring People; That they may more generally Turn and Live unto GOD; That they may not fall into the hand of Pirates; That such as are fallen into their Hands, may not fall into their Wayes.” ¹

                Once they were on the scaffold, Thomas Baker and Peter Cornelius Hoof looked “distinguishingly pentitent.”²

                But John began to behave “at such a rate,”³ that the audience was shocked. He began to use the language he had become accustomed to using while living among the pirates and sailors, and then began to read prayers, described as being “not very pertinently chosen.” ⁴

                Then he made a speech, which made everybody tremble, he advised sailors “to beware of all wicked Living, such as his own had been; especially to beware of falling into the hands of the Pirates: But if they did, and were forced to join with them, then, to have a care whom they Kept; and whom they let go and what Countries they come into.”⁵  

                Then the six pirates were hanged.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mather, Cotton, “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead,” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering and Chatto, 2007.

 

 

ENDNOTES

 1 Mather, Cotton, “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead,” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering and Chatto, 2007, Vol. 4, p 143.

2 Mather, Cotton, “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead,” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering and Chatto, 2007 Vol. 4, p 143.

3 Mather, Cotton, “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead,” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering and Chatto, 2007, Vol. 4, p 143.

4 Mather, Cotton, “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead,” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering and Chatto, 2007, Vol. 4, p 143.

5 Mather, Cotton, “Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead,” in British Piracy in the Golden Age, edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering and Chatto, 2007, Vol. 4, p 143.