My Powder Monkey was Shanghaied by Jedi

I really thought my nephew would “go on the account”.  I saw how he perked up at one of the lectures my pirate group gave when we displayed our swivel gun.  We played pirate one day in his backyard.  He wore a cardboard pirate hat and carried a small plastic sword.  A plastic slide was our ship.  We stood at the top, scanning the horizon, shouting, “Land Ho!”  He even pirated a cookie from the dessert table.  When caught by his mother he said, “I’m a pirate and pirates steal things”.  The coconut doesn’t fall far from the tree.

So it is with a sad heart that I find myself buying Star Wars toys for his birthday.  Now before you SF fans set your phasers on kill, let me write there is nothing wrong with science fiction.  Many historic reenactors are SF fans.  And don’t reenactors and SF fans enjoy the same things:  dressing up, play acting, attending conventions (or fairs).  It’s just that when you’re a pirate reenactor you hope the next generation signs onto the Black Pearl and not the Enterprise.

I could wring my hands and wonder where I went wrong.  What kind of kid doesn’t like searching for treasure?  Exploring uncharted islands? Making loud noises?  Let’s face it a light saber will never set off a car alarm like a blunderbuss.

I know I just described a plot for a SF movie—just change treasure to some crystal that’s needed to make the spaceship fly and island to planet. Not being into science fiction, I can’t explain its appeal.  As a reenactor I can explain the fascination with the past and pirates.  The past is the building block of the present, the foundation of the future.  A pirate has the spray of the sea on his face, something a Jedi doesn’t have in a hermetically sealed vessel.  Pirates have a sense of freedom, of making their way in the world on their own terms, and they dress better.

I have not given up on my recruiting efforts.  Everytime my nephew picks up his light saber and wildly slashes the air in imitation of the Jedi, I teach him the proper way to hold a sword—on point, sword at chest level to defend the body, not the air.  Installing in him respect for the sword as a tangible weapon made of steel that conquered countries and forged kings and not a fleeting shaft of light in someone’s imagination.

Who knows, someday he may hear the call of the sea.

If not, there’s his younger sister whose initials are ARR.