Pirate

I spent a pleasant evening and morning after in the town of Appalachia, Virginia this weekend visiting a pirate named Gary. He runs an international pirate consortium that operates ’round-the-clock hoisting opera broadcasts out of the digital sea. The pirate named Gary says he tallies upwards of 150 such broadcasts himself  every month and uses four computers to do it. A fifth computer runs his pirate phone. He smokes like a fiend.

He reminds me of a man I knew in Sumter over 30 years ago. That man was an opera fan, too. And a smoker.

But the pirate named Gary has a large white pirate beard, which the man in Sumter did not. I remember being able to breathe more freely around the Sumter man, too, but I was younger then, which might account for my breathing difficulties over the weekend.

Another interesting thing …

The man in Sumter had a huge collection of vinyl records. Literally floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall. When I mentioned this to the pirate, he said he has a huge collection of vinyl records, too … except he keeps them inside the boxes that hold his bed up off the floor and inside other boxes piled waist-high in the room where his computers are.

“Of course you do,” I thought, but didn’t argue.

He is a pirate, after all.