Pirate ship built for family's fun

Pond becomes popular gathering place. 

Pond becomes popular gathering place. 

September 04, 2006|MARK RANZENBERGER Morning Sun (Mount Pleasant)

DENVER TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- Dan Barden just wanted a place for his children and grandchildren to swim, so a few years ago, he dug a pond in front of his place. " There's a high water table," he said, pointing to low-lying, swampy land on either side of his place in Isabella County's Denver Township. " You dig a hole, it fills up with water."  The pond was about 15 feet deep, deep enough to dive into. " I started out with just a diving board at the pond," he said.  But the self-employed auto painter had some other ideas. " I built a cabin.  I built the tree house," he said.  Family members were beginning to use the cabin and the pond and the tree house, and the yard started to get busy.  After all, he and his wife, Tammy Mroczek, had combined their families, and they had six children between them, plus grandchildren, plus nieces and nephews and the occasional neighbor kid.  Then Barden spotted what looked like a pirate ship along a highway downstate. " I thought I could probably build one," he said.  He didn't have any formal plans or anything; it turned out, he didn't need any. " We collected lumber for about a year before we started building it," Barden said. " I helped people remove their old decks, just for the lumber.  The top side might be kind of dirty, but the bottom side is still real good."  Once he found a telephone pole to use for a mast -- it had broken off in a storm, but was still long enough for what he needed -- he and other family members built the good ship Drifting Buzzard next to the pond.  Barden didn't use any plans written on paper.  He said he just had a picture of the Drifting Buzzard in his head, and built it.  It has three decks, a captain's cabin, and the diving board's still there.  Swimmers "walk the plank" off the diving board.  There's a Jolly Roger flying from the mast, a skull on the fo'c'sle, and for some reason, a plastic alligator on the bowsprit.  There's even a cannon -- but the only cannonballs coming off this ship are from the couple dozen or so children who regularly use it as a diving platform. " I'm here, oh, 24/7," said Rob Wrick, a recent Montabella High School graduate and one of Barden's nephews. " Kids come here, and they don't want to leave."  Neighbor Christopher Wiggins said he just liked to hang around, just before he blasted into the water from the Buzzard's poop deck.  The place has turned into the family's own swimming hole, with adults keeping an eye on things from beneath canopies on shore, and children just whiling away summer days.  Barden adds an aqua color to the pond, and treats it a couple of times a month with a sanitizer to keep it clean. " You know how little kids are," he said.