as an exploratory journey through that old party question: if you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be? History is full of people you’d love to have a drink with. Let’s meet a few.
as an exploratory journey through that old party question: if you could have a drink with anyone in history, who would it be? History is full of people you’d love to have a drink with. Let’s meet a few.
Have a drink with: Stede Bonnet The Gentleman Pirate, if you please Ask him about: the shipboard library Like many, many other people around now, I am smitten with Our Flag Means Death, Taika Waititi’s comedy series about real-life pirate Stede Bonnet and his journeys with the famous Blackbeard. What may be surprising to viewers…
Have a drink with: The Weller Brothers Blow, me bully boys, blow. Ask them about: Sugar and tea and rum Amidst other things people probably did not have on their bingo card in 2021 was the rise of Sea Chantey TikTok, but it’s been a strange year already, so why not? So the biggest question…
Have a drink with: The Greely Expedition Survivor: Climate Research Edition Ask them about: Eating your shoes Hey folks! If you think you’ve got it bad having to stay home for Thanksgiving, well, at least you’re not marooned in the Arctic having to eat your shoes for dinner. My piece on the ill-fated Greely Arctic…
Have a drink with: Henry Opukaha’ia Aloha oe. Ask him about: No pineapple on Pepe’s, right? We’ve talked before about how Connecticut has given the world a wide assortment of innovations, some good, some bad: speed limits, law schools and scary Puritan judges, sure, but also Pepe’s pizza, submarines, constitutional government (maybe?) and P.T. Barnum….
Have a drink with: David Bushnell Damn the torpedoes. Ask him about: The one that got away Folks in Warrenton, Georgia were understandably sad when Doctor David Bush passed away in 1826. Single and in his eighties at the time of his death, the old man was a local institution: in more than thirty years…
Have a drink with: Yankee Whalers Amazon Wish List: a dead whale or a stove boat. Ask them about: holiday shopping Ron Howard’s new movie In the Heart of the Sea, a film adaptation of Nathaniel Philbrick’s excellent book of the same name, tells the story of the Essex, a Nantucket whaler rammed and sunk…
Have a drink with: Captain William Kidd Privateer, man of song and legend, unwitting pirate? Ask him about: the tabloid trial of the (18th) century! William Kidd, a merchant captain and commissioned privateer, was tried and executed in 1701 for throwing away the king’s commission to turn pirate in the Indian Ocean. Not 25 years…
Have a drink with: The Charles W. Morgan Whaleship, world traveler, cultural ambassador, marine rendering plant Ask her about: What it smells like to cart around a few dozen sailors in a wooden oil tub with limited cleaning facilities. For three years at a time. The Charles W. Morgan is the last of the American…
