Humor

The Tragedy of the Pcuni

How hopelessly lost Irish monks, my great-great-great-grandfather and a family of idiot Americans caused an environmental tragedy.

The Missionaries

Our story began in 1625 when a group of Irish monks chartered a paddle steamer for what they thought would be a trip to China to convert heathens. They had the unfortunate luck to have hired an erstwhile American river captain who had experienced a run of bad luck.

That captain was, in fact, my great-great-great-grandfather. I have his journals and some of his personal effects and can relate a more complete story than has ever been told before.

My ancestor’s part in this story is not heroic. Still, I intend to present the unvarnished facts that I have learned from his journals and other research in the monastery records.

To save typing and your eyes, I will refer to the captain as Captain Jack throughout the rest of this narrative.

A Failed Business

Although most paddle steamers turned a significant profit operating on the Mississippi River, Captain Jack did not. The captain attributed this business failure to a lack of passengers, trouble obtaining spare parts for the boat engines, and other anachronistic difficulties. Still, modern historians often observe that he was a known drunk.