Penny 4 Your Thoughts

OK, I suppose you are wondering why I am PhilPirate. Well, way back when, my wife was directing the Middle School musical play (no, it isn’t a movie…) Peter Pan. It had both kid roles and adult roles. I would always help out as an acting coach…but this time, I got a part - I played Captain Hook. Wow! Cool! A swordfight onstage, a super costume, and I got to sing a tarantella. Little did I know what my future would bring.

Two decades later, I was reading Dave Barry’s column in the paper, and he was writing about National Talk Like a Pirate Day. I thought, “That’s the perfect holiday!” Then I saw the date - September 19th. Fate was telling me something; that’s my wife’s birthday! Coincidence? I think not. This was a day designed to make me happy.

So, I decided to go to school on the appropriate day and celebrate heartily with my students, whether they liked it or not. I went to the store and bought that corn snack, Pirate’s Booty. I studied up and learned all sorts of buccaneer lingo, and practiced my guttural noises.

It went well, and my team went along with the celebration…there are never enough celebrations in middle school. One teacher even had one of her stuffed M&Ms (with an eyepatch) walk the plank from a third floor window. My students learned that Yo, ho, ho was not a hip-hop insult, and that looking for booty wasn’t what they might have thought. They had to ask, “Captain Phil, request permission to visit the poop deck.” Again, it went well.

Since then, staff and my friends have attached to me all sorts of notions piratical. I had my staff picture taken as a pirate, I have emceed a local Mardi Gras shindig as a pirate, and have been known to emit “arrrrrhhhh”s at the drop of a doubloon. I even have a parrot! I could go on, but I hear my saucy wench calling me….

Oh, is this blog supposed to be about education? Heck, I mentioned school and students a couple of times!