Buckle here. I’d like to take this opportunity to say few fings about life aboard The Pollywogg.

Smiley faces

Thursday November 10, 2005

Salty and I sink a Spanish galleon.

Hello. Life onboard is pretty fine for a Master Gunner. But I must admit, I just don’t get the respect I deserve. Just the other day Captain Bogg scolded me for doing my job.

It all started when Salty was assigned to stack the brass monkeys. No sooner had I showed him how to arrange the cannon shot and charges than he’d somehow managed to drop most of the cannon balls into the galley and set fire to Mr. McGraw’s hammock. I went to help him and he slipped on the deck and wound up with his head in one of the sand buckets.

By the time he was freed The Pollywogg had taken two shots broadside from a Spanish galleon. The smell of smoke and powder from the other ship was a wake up call for us on the gun deck. I went straight to work.

Being the strongest man in the world has its advantages. First of all it allows me to move the cannon with the greatest of ease. Second, and most important it allows me to fire off cannonballs without the use of a cannon.

You heard me. I am the master gunner of the mighty Pollywogg and I’ve never fired a shot! I can throw a cannonball twice the distance of our longest gun. And with ten times the accuracy. This is what got me into trouble that day with little Salty.

He’d never really seen my technique, and well I got a little too enthusiastic, you might say. My first toss took out the Spaniard’s aft gun. My second through fifth silenced the rest of their guns. In fact I even got the little cannon they use to shoot the rope ashore.

Now this is where Salty and I got a tad carried away. Young Salty noticed the marked similarity between the placement of my second and third shots and the eyes on a face. I thought he was right, but decided it really wouldn’t be right without a nose. And a smiley mouth. And ears. And a wart right into the Spanish captain’s quarters, and well by now we were running out of ship.

But Salty and I were right rolling on the decks with laughter. I was about to give him a dimpled chin when Captain Bogg comes storming down the stairs and screams something about how I’m sinking the ship too fast. Too fast? It’s my job to sink ‘em, not to time ‘em.

Okay. So we didn’t get aboard to plunder and all that above decks business. But next time I’m thinking of something in a nice still life.

-Buckle

June 2006: 13: Such a mighty racket!
December 2005: 13: Golden beans on ice.
November 2005: 10: Smiley faces