Posted July 21st 2003
arr...arr...avast ye ya lily livered landlubbers, batten down the mainsail,
hoist the jibbet, scupper the uppers and flatten the flipitygibbers...arr...or
I'll have yer carcasses hanging from the yardarm!!
Scared? Well you ought to be because that was authentic pirate gibberish. I
have no idea what any of it means but it is fun to start spouting it out whenever
you're at sea, like I was this past weekend (well not really 'at' sea but 'on'
a large river). I must say that the captain of our small boat did not share
my enthusiasm for this lost language, especially when I climbed onto the cabin,
pointed at a boat not far from us and yelled "There she be lads, queen
of the Spanish fleet and filled with treasure! Let's take her!!..arr..arr."
Apparently the captain felt that this sort of behavior was uncalled for (we
were on a river bird watching cruise) and threatened to put me ashore. But cooler
heads prevailed and the rest of the cruise went without incident. But if I know
you (and I think I do) you haven't heard a word I said after the word 'treasure.'
It's okay, it's not just you, most people get all fuzzy-eyed and perk up their
ears whenever the word treasure pops into a conversation. If you don't believe
me try this trick the next time you suspect that your loved one isn't paying
attention : stick the words 'buried treasure' into the middle of any sentence
and see what happens. "I was talking to Bill at the Laundromat, buried
treasure, and he wants to know if we want to come over this weekend." You'll
see anyone who's dozing snap to attention, which leads me to this weeks' subject
which is...you guessed it...buried treasure. First I must say that last weeks'
column about truth made me realize how much time I've spent lying to you people.
I'm not promising to turn over a new leaf (after all it's too much fun making
stuff up) but for at least one more week, I'm going to attempt to tell you the
truth about something. Let me start by saying that we all have unusual characters
in our respective family trees. I do, you do, everyone does. Whether it's a
civil war hero, like Stacey has in his family, or a Wall Street embezzler like
Rich has in his family. We all have relatives whose names come up at family
gatherings (okay that part about Rich having an embezzler in his family isn't
accurate--this 'truth' thing doesn't come easy to me). In my family, if we talk
about characters from past generations, my uncle Ralphs' name will invariably
come up. My uncleRalph was born (I think) sometime in the late 1890's and lived
until the late 1970's. Like everyone on both sides of my family tree he could
talk and spin a tale with the best of them. As a matter of fact in my family
the rare item is someone who listens (you can't swing a dead cat at a family
cookout without hitting someone who's halfway into a 'good' story). But don't
get the wrong impression, Ralph was an honest straight-shooting kind of guy,
but he was also a guy with a secret. And his secret, believe it or not, was
about buried treasure. We have to go back now to wwii (1941). Ralph was a bit
old to enlist so, living in Ipswich, he worked in 'coastal defense.' It may
seem silly now but back then people worried that the Germans (our enemy back
then in case you never went to school) would attack our shores and maybe even
invade our country!! Yipes this was serious business. So every night Ralph went
to the beach, got out his binoculars and watched the coast. "what does
this have to do with treasure?! you said it was about treasure and now you're
not talking about treasure!!!" Hold on--we're getting to that part now.
It seems that when Ralph wasn't watching the coast he was out looking for antiques.
You may know someone like that now; someone who can't pass a flea market without
stopping. Well that was my uncle Ralph. It was right around this time period
that he bought a small attractive wooden chest at an auction. He thought it
looked old and the price was right (it must have been cheap because from all
reports, so was Ralph). Anyhow he took it home and opened it and discovered
that it had a false bottom.(Man, even I'm starting to get excited by this story
and I know how it turns out!) And inside the small compartment was a map. It
appeared to be a drawing of an island and written next to and around the island
was a pictographic script that Ralph thought might be either Chinese or Japanese.
And because we were also at war with the Japanese, Ralph thought that maybe
this map had something to do with spying or espionage. I know you're feeling
superior now and thinking 'geez Mike you're ancestor sounds as stupid as you.'
Okay, but you must remember, as Lou Reed once said, 'Those we're different times.'
Anyhow, my uncle did what any good American would have done back then; he took
the map to the FBI. They checked it out and told him it wasn't Japanese but
(they thought) some old form of Chinese and had no relationship to the current
war. 'What the hell is this,' thought Ralph? And then he did something which
I think shows him to have been a thoughtfull, intelligent man. He took the map
to Harvard (the school not the town). There he found a proffessor who not only
deciphered it but told him that this a very old map (early 1700's) and that
the form of Chinese that it was written in was old even then. And why would
someone from the 1700's write something that even at that time period only a
few could read? You got it...it was a treasure map! Although no particular island
was named, when deciphered, the map gave very distinct directions on how to
find a buried treasure (some of you just woke up again). Ralph studied this
map and it's talk of 'large quantities of gold and silver' for years and learned
that whoever had written the map (or had it written) had placed certain riddles
in the way of any who tried to decipher it. The author of the map (my uncle
thought at one point that it might be Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard)
took great pains to be vague and to name objects (like trees and rocks) that
ultimately might not have survived the intervening 200 years. But in the early
1950's he was ready to start looking. By now he had sought out more than one
translation (it was in an old form of Mandarin) and even the experts couldn't
agree on some of the text. But he was convinced that the island mentioned was
Plum Island. Yes, the one in Newburyport, Mass..(note the correct 2 dots). Okay
alot of you are now thinking "wait a minute--this sounds like a friggin
disney movie, there weren't any pirates around here back then." To which
I respond---oh yes there were!!! (note the extra exclamation points) There was
a period between about 1720 and 1805 when dozens if not hundreds of pirates
took whatever ships they could whenever they could, sometimes killing or enslaving
all aboard (our current inner-city problems pale compared to this). In any event,
Ralph was ready to start hunting and his test of his own interpertation of the
map centered around finding a certain coin in a certain place. Much to everyones
surprise, probably even his, he found the doubloon where it was supposed to
be. He now had what, in treasure hunting business, is called 'The Fever.' He
would find 3 other coins over the years (all in their proper place) but he never
found the treasure though he spent the rest of his life looking it. I talked
to him a few months before he died and he said the problem had to do with an
enormous oak tree that no longer existed; it was used as a landmark on the map.
So there it is treasure seekers---go find it. Just be warned that the land where
my uncle was digging has now become federal property so even if you find it---you
can't keep it. But I guess if we knew exactly where to look we could sneak in
at night.....well that's the truth as near as I can tell it, adios amigos,...Mike
Bio • News • Mike Says • Shows • Songs • Photos • Ask a Fool • Press
View The Guestbook • Sign The Guestbook