History as told by Dick Munsell

Grubb and I have conflicting data on when I joined. I thought it was 1964, but I guess it was 1965. I got the idea to join about six or seven years before that. I was over at Lake Washington watching the races and lo and behold here comes this group of what looked like really outstanding citizens. Just pretending that they were ne'er do wells.

I thought, 'God, those guys are having a little bit of fun.' It looked like fun, anyway. I was maybe 26 or 27 at the time. I said 'Well, that's something to think about.'

A year or so later, I ran into a couple of people I had known when I was going to high school and college, and they asked me to join. They convinced me I should join. And about that time I was single, so I thought, 'Well, that is something I want to do.' And I was invited to come in.

You know, it takes an awful lot of time. And at that time I had time, I could not come in today, just because of scheduling. But basically that is how I got started.

In 1965 we were busy trying to recreate things-This thought about the Pirates being this, that, and the other thing. Really, every man is a pirate. Some of us just wear different clothes. It's organized chaos. It's all a fantasy or a mirage, however you want to put it, But yeah, we try to create the illusion that everything is rude, terrible, bad, rotten, nasty. And actually, when it first got started we had a lot of help. Some of those guys really were.

Over the past 20 years I have seen the growth of a super organization In 1965 we were still working with budgets from Seafair, and we would go out and do things that we can't do today.

At first the Pirates were part of the Washington Press Club, and you had writers and photographers following us around. The police provided the Duck with an escort of three wheelers-all things that the city can't afford any longer, and neither can Seafair. I might make mention that we do own the name Seafair and lease it back to Greater Seattle.

There were 40 members in 1965. Now there are 43. During the '60s, when all the things got started with pot smoking and this, that and the other thing, it was hard to find anybody to be a Pirate because they were doing it every day. It was hard to recruit because people were all doing their thing. And during that point in time, I think we got down to a low of 26 or 7. I was transferred to California and kept coming back for Seafair on vacations. I came back to a meeting in the summer of '71 and there were only nine guys at the meeting. And I said, 'Gentlemen, this is not good.'

They only had one candidate and everyone was kind of sitting on their duff. And I said, 'Look, I'm looking from the outside at a group I'm interested in, Go out and find some candidates.' And they did, They got five the first year and eight or nine the next, and it has been snowballing ever since.

We're an organization that really picks and chooses. We look for someone with time, You have to believe in it if you are going to become active. Talent is something that is also rewarding.
The attrition rate is awesome, Over 35 years, probably 20 percent of the candidates who come in and say, 'I want to be a Seafair Pirate' make it. About 80 percent go out the door. They can't make it, don't have the time, all kinds of reasons. We have quarterly evaluations of our candidates and you have to be invited in by a member.

It is one of the hardest dubs to get into. And it is the easiest one to get kicked out of. However, we are somewhat tolerant. It takes a two-thirds vote to be evicted, but it happens fast, In addition to being totally expelled, you can be suspended or put on probation. We just can't screw up, If we do it once, everybody is on our case.

17 Past captains at the Davy Jones banquet in 1983 -
At Seattle's once famous Dog House.

The public wants fun. Kids like being scared. Grandmas like getting a kiss on the cheek, It is just the overall thing we do. And you really have to watch us. I don't know what is fun. But I spend my time thinking about what they don't want-the grabbing and squeezing, this, that and the other thing. We are the only member of the Seafair group to go out and get close to a crowd.

1978 was a terrific year, That was the year of the Richard, when I was captain, The tall ships were terrific, Going to the Portland Rose Parade on the train was fun. Going to Spokane for the Lilac Festival; Wenatchee for the Apple Blossom Festival.

1966 was the most fun, and it was also the start of all sorts of BS. We stayed at the Park Haviland in Portland. And while we were there, some high school students started a fire in the closet, and four of us saved thousands and thousands of lives. That was fun.

It is hard to isolate one thing. You're busy doing things and if you don't like doing them you do something else. Being a Pirate or being in a group, if you have a little bit of ham in you at all, it gives you a license to participate, It's a way of letting off steam, stress, whatever is in there from the normal every day rat-race. It's a license to steal, All of a sudden you can poof! let it all hang out and, by the time you get home, be back to normal. It's a pressure valve type thing. And it is our civic duty, It's necessary we go out -and do these things.

We're an electric group, We go anywhere, and things happen. Friday we went into a restaurant to sell pins. We asked the manager if we could talk to the crowd, and all of a sudden everything was wild. After 15 minutes the manager came up to us and said, 'holy cow, you guys ought to come in here every night'. It was just overwhelming. Everyone was just sort of blah and looking at each other. We sang two songs and they livened UP.

We police ourselves. When a member is doing something we don't think is right, we write a letter and have a trial. You bring in witnesses to defend yourself, then the whole membership votes. If two-thirds agree you are guilty, you are either expelled, suspended or put on probation.

There are two organizations: the Ale and Quail Society and the Seafair Pirates, I have been president of the Ale and Quail and Captain Kidd of the Seafair Pirates. The president doesn't have any clout when you are out on the street. Captain Kidd does, He's god out there. The president can suggest, but the captain doesn't have to listen. The captain's reign starts with the landing each year. Our officers are elected in December and start in January. You can only be captain once. However, if the present captain can't make an operation, then a past captain takes over. So everybody gets to wear their feathers a little bit. Only the captain wears feathers, except, of course, for Davy Jones.

A definite low point was when we were thrown out of Seafair. There was a change of leadership in Greater Seattle. They had brought a fellow in from the Mid-west who managed to all but sink Seafair per se. He came in and figured how they would have pumpkins and squashes coming down the street and that the public was going to enjoy that. He figured, 'Hell, we can get along without the Pirates.' And it was gratifying the response we got.

Being expelled was interesting. The only thing we couldn't do was run the Torchlight Parade. It made us more popular than ever. And we didn't get any bucks either. Guy Houtz was captain that year, and it took an awful lot of talking to keep him from going to that Torchlight Parade anyway because we damn near did. It was one of those things that we came right across Fourth Avenue in the middle of that parade, and it would have been easy just to turn left and smoke in. But we went right across the street and went to the Hungerford. Within three years, we were asked back in.

'Will you mind being nice to some of these folks?' they asked. And we said, 'Okay.'

Being in a Torchlight Parade is memorable. You see this mass of people just watching and you realize you had better be entertaining. It's a challenge to elicit humor, laughter, whatever it is and have a good time doing it. It is a lot different than standing on the curb. It does look like a bunch of crazy people coming down the street, but we pretty well know the limits of what we are doing.

There something about seeing those people 12 deep that makes it all worthwhile. It does sort of keep you alert. You have folks out there who are expecting something, even if they don't know what it is-noise, confusion. And each year it is different.

People ask me, 'What in the hell do you do? We go out and run the parade. The people determine what you are going to do. Everything is ad lib.

We had a bunch of guys in the beginning who really thought they were Pirates. They had some unfortunate experiences. One time a guy went and chopped up a mahogany bar at the old Von's Restaurant, That didn't make us real popular. There was a lot of profanity and not too much regard for the people we were supposed to be entertaining, and a whole series of things that were less than desirable by anybody's standards. But it was a different era. And some of the things that were very risqué then are more acceptable now.

People still complain about our cannon. I mean hell, it is tough to have fun anymore. But we sure try.

By Dick Munsell


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