No such thing as too many pirates.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

If you can't find a pirate Halloween costume around town to save yer life, you can blame those scurvy little bilge rats and ne'er-do-well blackguards at Adams and Hillside elementary schools.

A good three-quarters of the two schools' 330 students, along with virtually every staff member and volunteer, dressed up Wednesday for "Talk and Dress Like a Pirate Day," the crowning event to several weeks' worth of pirate research, reading and games in the schools' shared library.

Eye patches, black boots, striped pants and head scarves were the dress du jour, with Principal Anselmo Villanueva cutting an especially swashbuckling figure in full-on pirate garb and pasted-on mustache and braided beard a la "Pirates of the Caribbean."

"I thought he was a real pirate - I didn't recognize him," said third-grader Geena Chandler, who wore a black hat, eye patch and a name tag identifying herself as "Black Ethel."

The idea for a pirate theme came from librarian Molly Hansbrough, who saw it as a perfect hook, so to speak, for introducing kids to the treasures of the library. In addition to leading various pirate-related activities and research projects since the start of school, she's decorated the library with a cardboard pirate ship, flags and crepe paper. She's also distributed copies of her own "Cap'n Molly O'Book's Pirate Dictionary" to each student.

"I've never been able to keep a pirate book on the shelf," said Hansbrough, who's worked at the school for 11 years. "Pirates are a really big thing, so there's been a lot of interest in this."

Hamming it up in a white shirt, red sash, black pants and black boots, Hansbrough spoke in her best pirate brogue through much of the day. "Aye, me maties!" she called to a pair of staff members, one of them dressed like a castaway. "Don't be stepping on any barnacles with those bare feet!"

Many students have embraced the pirate patois with relish, including Adams third-grader Jack O'Grady, aka "Cap'n Bruno Cannonballs." He greeted Hansbrough in the hallway with a classic, growling "Arrrr!," but said that's actually not his favorite pirate word.

"I think it's probably `black spot,' ' he said, which - according to Hansbrough's dictionary - is what one pirate would place on another to mark him for death or accuse him of a serious crime.

Earning the title of "Prettiest Pirate" during a recess contest was Hillside second-grader Raina Kamrat, who wore a red head scarf, frilly white blouse, black-and-white striped skirt and shiny black boots. Sitting with her classmates on the floor of the library, she clutched a book titled "Roger the Jolly Pirate."

"I like pirates, but if I was alive a long time ago, I wouldn't want to be a pirate," she said. "I wouldn't want to lose my teeth and get green teeth. And read maps every night."

At Adams, the afternoon was given over to special pirate choice classes, such as building pirate ships, making treasure chests and fashioning tropical islands out of cookie dough.

Hansbrough said she's sorry the event couldn't have coincided with International Talk Like a Pirate Day on Sept. 19, but it was too early in the school year.

Talk Like a Pirate Day was the brainchild of a pair of Albany residents, John Baur and Mark Summers, who were catapulted into the national spotlight last year after columnist Dave Barry promoted the idea.

The pair have a Web site, www.talklikeapirate.com, as well as a book.

Hansbrough used the Web site's "name generator" to come up with pirate aliases for the kids.

"A few of them weren't appropriate," she said. "We couldn't really have any saucy wenches."

CAPTION(S):

Clutching a book with a plastic hook and trying to keep her hat from slipping over her eye, second-grader Delila Rich encounters the perils of dressing like a pirate on Wednesday at Adams Elementary School. The costume event capped several weeks of pirate-related studies.