Holiday with pirates

Pirates sailed the high seas again last week. With a hearty “yo, ho, yo, ho, a pirate’s life’s for me,” swords slashed, waves splashed and cities were trashed as ordinary citizens screamed in the land of let’s pretend as the good ship Imagination sailed long and hard at our holiday family gathering at my daughter’s house.
Anchored firmly to the floor under the foosball table, Imagination carried the four-year-old to the land of Thomas the Tank Engine with the wooden train he and his grandpa set up out of the way of all those adult feet. Cranky the Crane made a debut as did Percy the engine. The wooden trees, wooden blops of people and houses entertained big and little sister, but trains and track remained brother’s domain.
Ahhh, the power of imagination to convert a cheap toy bow with rubber stopper arrows into the real bows and arrows of a mighty Indian hunter. Fortunately the arrows did not fly very far, or we might have had a lot of hurt and dying people.
As it was, if the arrows didn’t put you into a deathly state on the good ship Imagination, a visit to the two-year-old with a pink, plastic stethoscope would have. She checked out several, patient, adults who volunteered to lay down on the couch and have her listen to their hearts. After listening very carefully to their stomachs, she turned and told anyone nearby, in a dramatic, high falsetto voice, “They are dying.”
Earlier that same falsetto voice asked for more tea as she held the delicate, holly printed, miniature tea cup out for more of the orange tea and air cookies. Her sister smiled and poured, nibbled her cookie with a saucy shake of her head and a grin on her face – she glimpses the reality of Imagination.
Threatening growls from the youngest of the pirates initiated the newest uncle into the game of “You, the Big Adult, pretend to be tearfully terrified of me, the Little Kid.” He knew the rules. Every time she charged growling at him with her full 26 pounds of person hood, he jumped back in shock dismay, puckered up in a mock cry and pulled his shirt over his face as he boo-hooed. Anytime his interest waned and he moved to leave the good ship Imagination to join the adults in a conversation, she dimpled up and begged him to “do it again.”
The only unmarried uncle originated the pirate weekend with a ship made from wide shallow box, swords from wrapping paper cardboard tubes and bit of cloth that looked like a pirate flag to the children. He kept the little ones sailing the seas while the adults sat in another room watching a movie. Monday the game sailed south to our house long enough to enjoy a meal of Pirate Soup.
Before Monday, I always called it Hobo soup made from a conglomeration of several cans of soups – preferably any labeled as a vegetable soup. The cans are opened, dumped into a pot with a bit of water, heated, then served out of the original cans. As the soup warmed, imagination and a few folds of a sheet of newspaper created pirate hats.
We skipped the part about eating out of the original cans, and filled up pirate mugs instead to sip under the tri-cornered newspaper hats. Our meal complete, the pirates boarded the good ship Imagination and sailed away home.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)