(Several details of the following tome have been blurred and pixelated to protect the innocent.)

Many of us on the lower West side of the Atlantic marked an important national holiday last week. In case it escaped your notice, we were celebrating the defeat of our evil alien overlords by Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in 1996.

I was asked to help another shanty singing group who were down one singer for the 4th. I've done several of gigues with the group on a couple of handsome local schooners over the years. Two pair of us generaly go on each of two sister ships. The crew and captain are all great folks. In particular, the captain is a natural sailor who really knows her stuff.

We motored out towards gray skies and pretended to be sailorly while the passengers actually raised the sails. Because there was some hefty weather approaching from the southeast, we didn't sail on the bay, but rather turned up a picturesque river to the Northwest of our port.

Our shanty gigue was to last about 3 hours…yes, a three hour tour. It was timed to end with us dropping anchor to watch the city fireworks from the harbor.

I soon noticed that one passenger (hither to noted as the "extrovert* woman") decided that she should demonstrate the she was an old salt by dropping nautical terms as she called out chummy conversations with our captain. She seemed to be a friend or business associate of the captain. She would fire helpful questions like, "Are you going to be setting the fish sail...or maybe you've set the Jib a bit close?" She also gave an insistant song request: Danny Boy. She was not happy with my statements that it wasn't the kind of stuff we were there to do.(No, really. We are hired to sing shanties.) I finally sang Danny Boy, but I intentionally made sure to pitch the song so high that I SCREECHed the high note on "...Tis I'll be HEEEEEEERE in sunshine or in shadow" to her annoyance, but the great amusement of the rest of the group. Later she strongly suggested us that we really should be singing children's songs for the many children on board. Of course, we are not children's party performers, So I replied with two sea-flavored songs "Captain Barnacle" and "Trickle, Trickle Little Scar". They are both highly fractured versions of children's songs, but the jokes are really for the adults.

As expected, the adults were amused, the children were amused but appropriately puzzled...and extroverted woman* was perhaps dissatisfied that we hadn't met her suggestion with praise for her brilliance as an impromptu stage director. She continued making "helpful suggestions" to the crew and us.

In spite of her assistance, we had a pleasant sail until the weather gods noticed our escape. We had gotten some light rain while heading upriver, but not too bad. The crew distributed amusingly titled "Emergency Parkas" to us all. These were Chinese-made plastic bags with arm holes, hoods, and 3 ounces of lead and melamine in each one for body. They also were precisely the thickness of those dry cleaner bags that you are warned will pose a suffocation risk to children.
We came about to head back down river. The weather was getting ugly.

The mists of the deep first concealed and disclosed a glowering squall line between us and the lower river. Soon we were all drenched to the bone. It seems that Parka is a Chinese word that means "completely porous membrane". My guitar and the small children had been sent below for their comfort.

We approached our anchorage after passing through 3 hefty lightning punctuated squalls. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

This year I decided to do something that I have only threatened in past performances...sing the Star Spangled Banner. It's a shame that most Americans can't sing the words to our national Anthem; but also that most of us have no idea that we generally sing only the first verse of a four stanza piece. I really like the poem as a poem.

In the interest of time I chose to do the first and fourth verses only, hoping that the listeners would be prompted to do a bit of research on their own.

The ship was being ably maneuvered into our viewing area by the lovely and talented captain, but Extroverted Woman* inquired if the captain planned to use a 1:4 or 1:7 anchor setting. The captain eventually did neither ,but kept us slightly under way. Since there were plenty of small boats in the area, the captain asked the passengers to sit down so that she had a better view. They all complied and I prepared to sing. Here was the moment that I had been preparing for for days.

I began singing the Star Spangled Banner, with aid from my fellow songster and several passengers.

The extroverted* woman quickly noticed that no-one had stood up for our national anthem, so she began loudly insisting on it. She started poking seated passnegers and gave them an impromptu civics lesson about how they should have pride in their country and reminding them that valiant people had died for the privileges that made this the best country on Earth, and that we were supposed to show respect, and that it was terrible that no-one seemed to care about the responsibilities of being an American, and on, and on. She also ignored that fact that the captain had requested everyone to sit so that she could safely pilot the boat.

Extroverted Woman's* scree about being disrespectful to the anthem thoroughly trashed my singing of the anthem. She didn't stop until I finished. Can you smell the Irony?

As the rest of the passengers were distracted by the very nice fireworks, I made my way aft to have a quiet chat with our captain. I opined that if extroverted woman* had gone on much longer, I would be tempted to hoist her overboard, then I asked how well she (the captain) knew the loud extroverted woman. The ALWAYS cheerful captain Jennifer gave a slight smiling glance, full of subtle murderous intent and said," I've never seen her before in my life".

It reminded me of the joke with the punch line, "I thought he was YOUR dog."

The fireworks were fine, and no more incidents occurred with Extrovert woman. Our captain congratulated us all for surviving our great sea adventure. She remarked "Do you know the difference between a fairy tale and a sailor tall tale? Fairy tales start, "Once upon a time"... and sailors stories begin, "So, there I was..."
We motored back to city dock singing "Leave Her Johnny", then made our various soggy ways home.

*I am using this word in the sense of "slightly drunk self important center of attention seeking ass."

Extra line breaks added; easier on the eyes to read.:-)
el joe clone