Shiver My Timbers, Shiver My Soul

I realize that print journalism has either one foot in the grave or both (I have to admit I stopped visiting him years ago, at the first sounds of the death rattle). But let's harken back to a day when folks used to clip newspaper articles and send them by mail (I know, I know; Mail bought a burial plot right next door to Newspaper, and it's a neck and neck race to see whose ground settles first).

But do you remember those days? Did your great aunt Margaret slip a clipping of your name (along with the names of every other graduating senior) into that envelope smelling of mothballs, stuffed with your You Graduated! card and check? I don't have a great aunt Margaret, but you may have.

Or maybe it was your mom, clipping hometown articles "of interest" and tucking them into your college care packages. "Honey!" she may have written on a post-it note. "Didn't you go to school with this fellow? The death penalty! Wow! Don't forget to go to class!" Mom's like exclamation points.

My mom had a slightly different approach. She would, and still does on occasion, clip classified ads she thinks require further explanation:

Or less explanation:

(It's certainly not grammatically correct!)

Or a conscientious reader like herself to engineer a meet up:

But I grew up in a different world than my mom. I've actually never had a subscription to a print paper. I get my news from BBC in the morning, and from Stewart, Colbert, and cohort at night. I have an online subscription to National Geographic, and their daily news app is my favorite.

Or it was until I heard that Fox is buying out National Geographic. I haven't taken the time to processed my horror over this news just yet. You can expect 8 tearful blog posts on that topic in the near future. Shall we finish this one up first, though?

This whole business about how I get my news is really just a painful lead up to this boring sentence: I read the news online, and sometimes I send article links to people--a 21st Century version of my mom and your aunt Margaret.

It's not a thing I do regularly. I read global news, not hometown, so there's rarely something that I could pass on to say (or rather, exclaim!), "I noticed this! It made me think of you!" But every now and again, something will crop up. Something like:

Fugitive treasure hunter captured with dozens of cellphones

Now, if you grew up in a normal home, this headline lacks any buzzwords for you. It's a little funny, perhaps. And coupled with this awesome mug shot, you might have even opened the article.

But that's you.

I did not grow up in a normal home. I grew up with a fugitive treasure hunter. I mean sure, he's got less hair than this guy. And the only cell phone he could be captured with has one of those pull out antennas. But he really did hunt treasure. Big treasure. From sunken ships. In foreign waters. With bad men.

We went on trips to far off countries with these nefarious sea dogs. We had them over for dinners regularly. They would spend the night, take us kids out to the movies, come to our birthday parties, and introduce us to really great music. Like Linda Ronstadt and Tiny Tim.

My dad really was "in the business," and guys like the one pictured above were around. Regularly. So even though I didn't recognize this particular fella, I knew my dad would. And I knew he'd want to talk about it. Reminisce about the old days. Before everyone was in prison or dead.

So I did the Aunt Margaret thing. I copied the link, pasted it into an email with the subject line "Is This One of Your Cohort?" and fired it off. Sure enough, he was forthcoming with an affirmative response:

"Yes, I am familiar with Tommy..."

Of course you are. Did you work with him, then?

"He and Stephen [my dad's late, former business partner] had occasion to chat. Tommy was sharper than [Stephen] Kingsley. He stayed away from his schemes."

Ah. This fella whose just been arrested with all the cellphones was smarter and less criminal than your partner. Gotcha.

"I have told many people over the years that Peggy, Jerry, and myself were the only honest people in the business."

Yep. That sounds like something you'd say.

"In retrospect, maybe Peggy was the only one."

Ah. There is it. That kernel of truth we all know is in there, but we silently agree it's safer to let those sleeping [sea] dogs lie. (What a fantastic phrase that turns out to be, in this context.) My dad, the George Bluth Sr. of the high seas, has just admitted that he's probably not the patsy he always pretended to be.

But we children of parents are not reporters. It's not our job to go back and ferret out the truth of our youth. Even if our therapists think that's fertile ground for planting gardens of normalcy. What good is the truth though, really? It's our memories, our perceptions, that shaped who we are today. And to go back through the annals of time and write retractions is just busy work.

I didn't always like my dad when I was growing up (did you always like yours?); but I did admire his sense of adventure. I still do. He's a man who will dive to the bottom of the ocean for a piece of gold for heaven's sake. I don't even care to snorkel because, well, fish. You can't trust them. They might nibble me and I don't like being nibbled.

The pirate's life is truly not for me. I'm not an open seas kind of gal. Not in the literal sense, anyway. But somewhere inside of me, there's a piece of my dad. Because what is an adventure if not a story to tell? If a pirate sinks his treasure off the coast of Costa Rica but no one ever finds it, does that treasure really exist?

Not if someone isn't out there, continuing to tell the tale.

So rest easy, mateys. That creepy looking Tommy guy is behind bars and I'm pretty sure my dad's scallywaggin' days are done. The danger has passed, but the stories live on.

I think our old pals the Muppets captured it well in their version of Treasure Island:

Shiver My Timbers, shiver My Soul

Yo Ho He Ho

There are men whose hearts as black as coal
Yo Ho He Ho

And they sailed there ship across the ocean blue

A Blood thirsty captain and a cut throat crew.

Its a darker tale as was ever told

Of a lust for treasure and a love of gold.

Shiver My Timbers, Shiver my sides

Yo ho he ho
There are hungers as strong as the winds and tides

Yo ho he ho

Some of us lust for the gold, others the tale to be told. Whatever path your hunger leads you down, I wish you a glorious journey. One that makes it into a newspaper somewhere, so your aunt Margaret can send you a clipping for your scrapbook.