Do Pirates Really Go Down with the Ship?

May 5, 2014 10:19 AM

Exactly ten years after one of the most traumatic events in Tulip Time history, festival-goers (and children) are finally afforded a chance to turn a negative into a positive. Plus, the original headlines and the awards-filled aftermath.
posted by saintjoe (8 comments total)

I thought this was going to be about a stampede or mass shooting.
posted by desjardins at 11:10 AM on May 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I really hope those original pirate kids got invited back to the event (i couldn't tell if they were), and be given an apology.
posted by divabat at 12:34 PM on May 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

From the 'headlines' link: Her son and another student were suspended for one day at school because they allegedly posted fliers at school about the illegal entry.

I hope the kids learned their lesson well - you will be punished in the US for handing out material that authorities disapprove of.

The kids may have been trespassing (in the original story), but the authorities were apparently stomping over the constitution.

(I wasn't supposed to take this post seriously though, was I?)
posted by el io at 12:57 PM on May 5, 2014

I really wish the parents had been less "they aren't bad kids!" and more "you are stupid adults".

Because yea, i encountered several situations vaguely similar to this and one of the best things i ever heard from my awesome parents, and my friends awesome parents wasn't just "look, you can't do this and this is why" but also "And yes, the rules are fucking stupid we know that" not just the it is what it is/this is the way it is sort of tone the parents seemed to have in those linked articles.

I mean, i might be projecting a bit here but it really just felt like the parents weren't down with it because they got in trouble, and that's a huge bummer. One of the best things my parents did was essentially not really get me in trouble if what i was being externally punished for wasn't, or at least shouldn't have been actually wrong.

Everything the cops said reeked of sour grapes bitter old cop shit and totally flatulent logic like the whole "but if we don't stop them then everyone will try/we'll have to let everyone do it!" which is suuuuch stupid zero tolerance school administration level logic.
posted by emptythought at 2:38 PM on May 5, 2014

Do Pirates Really Go Down with the Ship?

not if they're wearing wooden shoes
posted by pyramid termite at 6:48 PM on May 5, 2014

from the aftermath link-

In a true move of both wit and class, the American Pirate Association kept just enough money to make one last charitable donation, this one in the form of purchasing a brick for the new Holland Police Station - the very same precinct that had pulled them from the parade in the first place

I don't know why I was so disappointed when they didn't throw that brick through the Holland Police Station's front window, but I was. Kids these days...
posted by hap_hazard at 10:24 PM on May 5, 2014

Leah Van Bragt, 4, liked the mermaid better than pirates, "because sparkles!" she said.
posted by Nossidge at 2:39 AM on May 6, 2014

For context, it might be helpful to know that Holland, Michigan is by and large a community so blandly conformist as to make Lake Woebegon look like an anarchist enclave by comparison.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:35 AM on May 6, 2014