This story is true. There was a Pirate. I know it's hard to believe. There was a Pirate who had a sister named Rat and a brother named Davey. Ludicrous, I know. But the truth is always stranger.

He was Dead Ear to his shipmates. Accounts differ on how he got the name.

It was snowing when my phone politely informed me you had passed. That’s not quite right. The snow that drifted across our farm, collected on our windshield wipers, and looked like static on greenhouse plastic, was instead ash. The news of your death came on the morning of the second day of the largest wildfire outbreak since 1910 and the worst wildfire disaster in Oregon state history. The impending doom of winter that you had foretold via Labor Day text, had arrived early.