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Tales from the Grand Piratical Council

Monte Rio
Sept. 18, 2004

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On the return trip from Peter & Emma's new place up near Monte Rio, we traded Jen for Kindy and rowed downstream (the motor had given out earlier in the day) towards the folks' place. Somewhere past the bend in the river, after we'd stopped to jump off some rocks and play on a tire swing, I pointed out a secret cove on the right bank. What happened there? Em asked. Nothing in particular, I told her.

"Oh, c'mon, Dad," she admonished me. "You can do better than that."

"Well," I said, scratching my chin, and descending into the particular sort of madness that makes one talk like a pirate. "Nothing much since the days when the Grand Piratical Council used to meet there every year! Aarghhh... when every pirate on the river would gather there once a year! Settle their differences, they would ... Aarghhh!"

And so we rowed on, swapping tales and singing songs about what might have happened there, long ago, as we drifted on toward the ocean in the sharp light of a late summer afternoon.