The sad story of Captain David Harriot was one many preachers depicted in their purge of people's fascination with pirates. Captain Harriot had a sloop named Adventure out of Jamaica and when he pulled into the harbor of Turneffe Atoll off of Belize to fill his casks with fresh water he found he had floated into a flotilla of pirates. Rather than having his pants shot off by pirates, he quickly surrendered and he and his men were forced to become pirates or face being marooned on Turneffe. Harriot became a pirate and soon was captured by Cape Fear vigilantes and later killed after escaping from custody of law enforcement authorities. http://johnnydepp-zone.com/boards/vi...?f=103&t=51098

There once was a Villager who suffered from awful constipation and one day he got the idea to eat a whole bowl (one lb. box) of stewed prunes to purge this terrible affliction. Then he decided to visit the Spanish Springs Town Square for some line dancing. (Do you see where this is going?) :icon_wink:

Suddenly, while line dancing, the prunes kicked in and he soiled his pants. From that day on he was depicted in the worst possible way and forever banished from all 3 town squares. :)

He was probably wearing white pants too.

:1rotfl:

I am sure glad I did not pick prune juice to help alleviate my low iron.

Jumble - Houston Chronicle

Tuesday's Jumble solutions:

Droopy.
Tweak.
Leave.
Button.

Blackbeard (born 1680) tried to offset any act he saw as a kindness--like his taking in of Captain David Harriot-- by staging actions which would enhance his reputation for cruelty and make merchant ship captains think twice before challenging him on the High Seas. He had read about the viciously cruel French pirate François l'Olonnais (1635-1668) as a child in Alexandre Exquemalin's Buccaneers of America (1678) and tried to match some of these stories. He buttoned himself and some crew members in the hold, lit fire to some barrels which had small amounts of brimstone, and waited for his crew members eyelids to get droopy when they tried to stop the noxious smoke from getting into their eyes. He was the last to leave this smelly inferno. It did tweak his reputation a bit. More so however was his action of asking three ship members to a drinking bout in his cabin, turning off the lanterns, sitting back down, and then shooting two pistols from under the table without aiming. He hit one of his crew in the knee with a ball and crippled him for life. When friends of the victim of the shooting Israel Hands -- now Captain of the Adventure-- asked him why he had done this Blackbeard said with a long line of curses "if he did not now and again kill one of them, they would forget who he was." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Exquemelin http://www.cindyvallar.com/lollonais.html

Wednesday's answers to the Jumble-- Added, Spell, Canopy, Butter.
 

Jumble - Houston Chronicle


Added.
Spell.
Canopy.
Butter.

Blackbeard's spell over the pirates was aided by pirate culture which had a very dry British wit to it in the use of the language to describe certain events. Much of this culture dated back to pirates like Sir Francis Drake and Henry Morgan. Blackbeard added quite a bit to pirate lore in the very short time he was actually involved in piracy. Under the canopy of pirate lingo were such phrases as:1) "a sweat" for laughingly poking captives of pirates with knives when they run around in a circle of pirates; 2)" sun-dried" for pirates' corpses the authorities hung out at piers as warnings against piracy; 3) "questioning with the usual ceremonies" for torture; 4) "soft farewell" for escaping from a tight situation; and 5) "forced loan" for stealing Spanish treasures. for Such language buttered up hands so-to-speak to readily fork over the booty as quickly as possible to pirates with little resistance. One such instance of this working was when Blackbeard's flotilla encountered the Boston ship the Protestant Caesar under Captain Wyar in the Bay of Honduras sometime after April 9, 1718. Finding out that the ship was from Boston which had authorities who on November 15, 1717 had hung six of the Brethen of the Coast (from "Black Sam" Bellamy's convoy and its two ship wrecks near Cope Cod) ; Blackbeard burned the ship after taking off what cargo he thought would be valuable. He then marooned the crew of the Protestant Caesar on the closest shore.

Friday's answers for Thursday's Jumble.
 

Jumble - Houston Chronicle

Filmy.
Jester.
Common.
Crust.

May 1718 Charleston, SC.
 

Now calling himself Commodore, Blackbeard brought his flotilla to block the waterways into Charleston, SC. His men kidnapped some of the common citizens of Charleston as well as many of its upper crust. Many of these nabobs came off the Crowley which had been bound for London and its many cultural offerings. The people of Charleston were in dire need of one of the jesters you would find in many a play showing in London at that time under George I's reign. The only thing floating on Charleston's harbor was the filmy tide.

Short story: The hero of this story decided to go for a walk but soon became very tired and hungry. So he decided to sit for a spell under the canopy of a large oak tree. He then took from his back-pack a box of popcorn, to which he added a generous amount of butter. He ate it all and then took a long nap. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Onion, auburn, bushel, wiped.
 

Jumble - Houston Chronicle

Answers for the day of the 2:24 ET asteroid Jumble (February 15, 2013) were:

Onion.
Auburn.
Bushel.
Wiped.

Pirate R & R.
 

Not having much else to do during the Charleston, SC blockade, the pirates of Blackbeard's flotilla spent their time hunting, sleeping, cooking, drinking, and fornicating. (Many pirates were gay and Blackbeard did have some female pirates in his flotilla). One favorite staple of their diet were sea turtles found in abundance in SC at that time. They would get a large number of sea turtles for turtle soup. A number of cauldrons were placed by many fires with at least a bushel of auburn and other colored vegetables collected locally to add to the soup. One pirate would serve as a wiper of the vegetables as they were added to the pots. They could not have any dirt or other contaminants in their soup. Many did lament that they did not have any of the onions made perfect in Bermuda to put into the turtle soup. The onions of Bermuda were too far away for the pirates to take the trip. What Bermuda onions they might find off of a travelling ship from Bermuda were soon eaten. Rise And Fall Of The Bermuda Onion | Bernews.com

There once was a field laborer who worked very hard picking onions for his money. But he was up to it, he was hardy and strong and good looking, with Auburn hair. On a particularly hot day, he would just wipe the sweat from his brow and pick another bushel

Glad I am not the only one doing this activity. It really makes you do a good deal of research if you take a historical theme like I did with the career of Blackbeard. I like to see other people doing their paragraphs.

Saturday's probable Jumble answers: bunker, locale, think, penny.
 

Blackbeard had to think of a locale for a bunker to hold the riches stolen from the hostages he had taken from the ships exiting and trying to enter Charleston harbor. From his kidnapping victims he took every coin he could find even the dump ha' penny from 4 year old William Wragg and then stuck every innocent into the hold of the captured ship the Crowley. This was not enough treasure though and he demanded that the citizens of Charleston provide him and his pirate force with a treasure chest of medicine as the pirates' very heavy partying had spread various diseases within their ranks.

(William Wragg would become a staunch loyalist during the Revolutionary War, give up his SC estates and drown while trying to resettle in England in 1777 http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our.../william-wragg).