Pirate Training

There's a high art to pirate training, 'tis true; and dismayingly, many of the rites and ritualisms thereof seem to have sunken away into the big drink of time's most lonely past. Long-since-slipp'd be the days of the scurvy knave straddling the yardarm, belting a hearty canticle to his belov'd aqueous acreages. I do own thems indeed to his possession for all such seas as have seen the galleon's keel do, aside from our most benevolent Creator, lie secondarily in possession, by merit of sheer enthusiasm mind you, of the sea-farer and his ilk.

My dispiritedness has aris'n in the times now afoot; these are the times dolefully, nay, lugubriously absent the passionate belt of a solitary "Arrrrr!" uttered in sincerity, for as today's clock ticks, pirates are found solely the meat of ridicule and playmaking. Ne'er is seen the effective use of an hook-hand to pry foodstuffs and the like from their containment, nor does a gold'n capp'd peg-leg bid adieu to the swindl'ing scallyway, unwillingly picking his way 'cross a wooden plank to make Davy Jones' acquaintance.

It is in these doldrums that I cast over my right shoulder this burden, rigid it may be in days of most adverse ways, of rearing my offspring in the meritorious occupations of the high-kings of the seas.

Let begin the pirate training!