From the Archives is a series of reposted articles from a previous iteration of The Lindeman Daily. There is more information about that iteration of the site in the About section, but the gist is that each post is a satirical news article sensationalizing the life of a college student/recent graduate. Most of these pieces are over 10 years old; some have aged like wine while others have aged like milk. And like aged wine and aged milk, they are probably more palatable when all mixed together. Enjoy!
Originally published February 26, 2012
On January 28, 2012, the Princeton Crew teams traveled to Tampa Bay, Florida for their annual winter training trip. While in recent years, the teams have traveled to Austin, Texas for their trip, they have switched back to the traditional Tampa following a three year absence. A serious time for hard work and focus, T. Lindeman ’14 arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport wearing a pirate costume.
Coincidentally, the first day of the trip fell on the last day of Tampa’s week long Gasparilla festival. Gasparilla is an annual festival held in Tampa that celebrates the debauchery and lack of hygiene of swashbuckling across the seas. Under a pretext of historical celebrations in honor of alleged pirate José Gaspar, the celebration involves thousands of citizens forgoing their landlubber clothing in favor of more whimsical pirate costumes, and consuming large amounts of alcohol. This year, the culmination of the week of piratical festivities fell on Saturday, January 28th, when the pirate-citizens staged a faux- invasion and demanded the key to the city from the mayor of Tampa. While Lindeman did not directly take part in any of this, he did adopt the spirit of the festival by invading the Philadelphia Airport.
The fact that Gasparilla would be in full swing during their first day of training gave Lindeman an idea, and so he took his reliable pirate clothing out of storage and got ready for the trip. Sporting torn pants, a vest adorned with the Jolly Roger, a red sash, occasionally an eyepatch (when he did not mind walking into various objects and people), an authentic hat, and a lush black mustache, Lindeman boarded the bus to the airport to looks of incredulity and judgment.
“I’ve had that costume for six years,” said Lindeman. “And it has never once led me astray. [For] four years in high school, every Halloween I was a pirate. Sometimes I wore it to the beach where I would swim out a ways, then over to the next beach where I struggled to shore, pretending I was shipwrecked.” These antics never amused the areas’ beach patrons or lifeguards.
Upon arriving at the airport, Lindeman was subjected to an additional cavity search while going through security. He soon realized it had been a mistake to invite the female security officer searching him to “shiver me timbers,” as a large man roughly took over for the flustered woman.
The barristas at the airport’s Starbucks were similarly upset by the handsome pirate’s intrusion into their shop. “He kept screaming at us,” said one of the store’s newest clerks. “He would yell ‘Arrrrrrrgh ye out of scones?!’ and we had no idea how to react. The scones were right in front of him! It’s always scary when lunatics make it through security.”
It was never more fitting for a pirate to say “Prepare to be boarded” as when Lindeman did when he approached the plane. The pilots themselves commented: “We had seen the crazy guy dressed as a pirate walking around the terminal telling people to swab the poop-deck, but we couldn’t even imagine that he’d be on our flight. It was interesting to say the least.”
Lindeman demanded rum from the flight attendants, but eventually settled for a coffee and a Sprite. “At seemingly random points in the flight, he shouted ‘Ramming speed!’ at us,” said one attendant. “He might have been talking about ramming the clouds, but I can’t be certain. Very odd.”
When they landed, the team was immediately ferried out of Tampa. “The coaches wanted to keep us out of the festivities,” said Lindeman. “But don’t worry, the party follows me everywhere.”
After the Gasparilla festival was over, they returned to the city for a week of training. Lindeman’s pirate antics during this time were very subdued. He said that he only wished to plunder the airport, not the city.
“There’s no good booty in Tampa.”
On the return trip from Tampa, extenuating circumstances made Lindeman unable to dress as a pirate again. Still, through some impressive finagling and his own brand of “pirattitude” Lindeman took advantage of flight attendants, pilots, and passengers alike. Walking onto the plane, he convinced an attendant and the pilots to let him into the cockpit and sit down in the captain’s chair. “We let him in, and even let him flip a switch or two during the pre-flight check,” said one of the pilots. “It was a little strange that he kept referring to the plane as a ship, but all of the logic behind his explanations of the controls made sense.”
Lindeman was given a middle seat in coach, but again, using a little savvy, he was able to take advantage of the situation and got an elderly couple to trade their exit row seats with him. “The hombre next to me?” asked a teammate who sat next to him for the flight. “He told an old woman he would skewer her gullet with his cutlass, and hang her entrails from the mizzenmast. He didn’t even have a cutlass, or a mizzenmast, but she moved very quickly.”
“We agreed to the switch back in the coach cabin because the woman he was originally sitting next to kept coming to us and pleading for him to move,” said one of the flight attendants. “Apparently he repeatedly threatened to make her walk off the wing if she didn’t tell him where her booty was.”
After successfully getting his way on the aircraft, Lindeman settled in and slept for the remainder of the flight. “Being a pirate really wore me out,” said Lindeman. “But it was great, everyone did everything I wanted. I wasn’t able to plunder any booty, or do any pillaging, or even make anyone walk the plank. I really didn’t get to do anything I wanted. But I’d say it was still successful. Somehow.”