MORGANTOWN — Shiver me Twizzlers!
A frightening frigate and her skeleton crew have dropped anchor off the coast of Morgantown.
Atop her mast flies the Jolly Rancher and at the helm stands none other than the notoriously ornery Scourge of Landing Drive, a.k.a. Jonathan Ware.
“This year we decided we wanted to something a little bit bigger, and that’s how we ended up with a 40-foot ship in the yard,” Ware deadpans about the scale approximation of Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge docked in front of his Landing Drive home.
The would-be pirate and his pops spent about 90 hours building the ship on the family’s Barbour County farm before hauling it to Morgantown, where its crew prepares to send candylubbers to the briny deep this Halloween.
“I’ve really always had a fascination with pirates. I think most people do,” Ware said. “They have a sense of danger and adventure. It’s exciting to think about living the pirate life. Plus, Halloween has always been one of my family’s favorite holidays. So it’s a combination of those two things.”
The aforementioned bony buccaneers help set the scene, as do a choir of shanty-singing pumpkins.
Ware said the display is already getting quite a bit of attention and he’s well aware that he’s set a high bar for himself.
“We may use this theme again. The ship, obviously, we’ll bring back and maybe put it in a different location. I plan to change the scene and add to it every year so we can keep going bigger and bigger,” Ware said. “It’s for the kids.”
