From the Pirate Guys Website – How this all started! Or, in another vernacular, we are guys, John Baur and Mark Summers. And that really should be all you need to know about the origins of Talk Like a Pirate Day. We’re guys. Not men, with responsibility and suits and power ties. We’re guys, with all that that implies. But here are the details.
Once upon a time — on June 6, 1995, to be precise — we were playing racquetball, not well but gamely. It wasn’t our intention to become “the pirate guys.” Truth to tell, it wasn’t really our intention to become anything, except perhaps a tad thinner and healthier, and if you could see our photos, you’d know how THAT turned out. As we flailed away, we called out friendly encouragement to each other -”Damn, you bastard!” and “Oh, jeez, my hamstring!” for instance – as shots caromed away, unimpeded by our wildly swung rackets.
On this day, for reasons we still don’t quite understand, we started giving our encouragement in pirate slang. Mark suspects one of us might have been reaching for a low shot that, by pure chance, might have come off the wall at an unusually high rate of speed, and strained something best left unstrained. “Arrr!,” he might have said. Okay – So click the picture and read all about it at there official site.
Okay – Back in Opelika Now!! Each year we talk about getting together a party. Didn’t last year due to Katrina and this year, we have no excuse. So, if this isn’t too late a notice, grab your eye patch and pirate dew rag and join us at Eighth & Rail Tuesday Night for some Pirate Talk. This is totally unofficial, but if you see a Pirate Flag in the window, we’re there!
From the Archives — originally published on the Opelika Daily News on September 17, 2006. View the original page.
