Three Fridays ago, three BSM seniors traveled the hallways with strange accents, well-planned costumes, and a blaring boom box playing the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean. These seniors, Chris Baldwin, Connor Gerdes, and Alex Gensch, were brave enough to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

This holiday began 13 years ago and is not well known among BSM students. Clearly it was important to these three seniors, however, who spent six hours planning their grand scheme and fully equipping themselves with a sword, hats, a flag, “pirated” music, and key pirate phrases like “Ahoy!” and “Yarr!”
Some students had simply talked like pirates last year, but this year “was the first time [the school] had people actually dress like pirates,” said Mrs. Mary Andersen, Assistant Principal.

While there were only three gallivanting pirates, they managed to reel in more followers as the day went on. “Our goal was to get everyone to talk like a pirate,” Baldwin said, while at the same time “being respectful in class.” They also hope that students in the future will “continue the tradition– ‘sen yarrs’ shouldn’t be the only ones,” said Baldwin.

Despite the occasional request for them to remove their hats or quiet down a bit, the three pirates remained unpunished by teachers and staff. In fact, Mrs. Andersen said that she was a large supporter of the holiday and she believed that the costumes and music contributed to the fun of the week. However, she said that she would in no way make this holiday official at BSM. “That would go against the whole idea…to commercialize it would be a travesty,” said Mrs. Andersen.

Even though the next International Talk Like a Pirate Day is almost a year away, we may have another rare sighting of characters in December for The Day of the Ninja and for the Day of the Jedi later this year. Fear not, Red Knights, yarr time shall come soon enough.