Inside the Beltway

Inside the Beltway


During the past few years there have been a number of articles in the paper and segments on the television news about how quickly the WWII generation is passing away.  The people that Tom Brokaw called “The Greatest Generation”.  Because of this, a number of groups have initiated Honor Flights; special tours for the remaining WWII veterans to fly to Washington, D.C. and view the monument that has been erected to commemorate their victory during that war.  You see the images of the old fellows, a lot of them in wheelchairs, moving slowly around the memorial and commenting on various aspects of it, remembering old battles and old friends, remembering events of their younger days as if they were only yesterday. 

Since my own father passed away long before this memorial was completed, I thought it might be fitting if I, as a sort of proxy or representative of my father, might visit there and do some remembering for him.  And along with this more solemn aspect of the trip to Washington I was contemplating, I made up a list of things that might be a bit more fun and entertaining for my wife and son to do.  When they had made their picks, we chose a date that we and our employers could all accommodate and got ready to go.

Early this past Saturday we piled into the Honda, my Honda actually as we all have one, and started down the highway with our nation’s capital as our goal.  (Excuse my variable spelling of the word “capital”.  I always goof that one up.  Is it capital or capitol?  Seems like I can never remember which one’s correct.) I was a bit apprehensive about this trip as I had broken out in a rash the night before and was concerned that I might be getting sick.  Sometimes when I get a “bug” it manifests itself in this way – rash, fever, headache, malaise, etc.  So I had my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t spoil our outing. 

We munched McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches and sipped coffee and milk as the miles ticked off and we headed ever more south and east.  The early morning fog was reticent to dissipate and we shared the morning with it for many, many miles until it grudgingly left our company somewhere around Morgantown, West Virginia. 

We grabbed a geocache at a pretty little town called Pleasantville, Maryland that morning and that added one more state to our tally.  Lunch was a busy Bob Evans in the Maryland mountains where we enjoyed the feeling of not having the road move beneath us for a while.  Then back on the highway and finally arriving at our new abode in Alexandria, Virginia sometime in the mid-afternoon. 

After checking in and depositing our bags in the motel room, we drove to a nearby station on the metropolitan Washington rapid, parked and jumped on the Metro to head into the city.  I’d studied the Metro maps online during the previous weeks and was fairly well versed on where to go, so we were soon riding the escalator up into the daylight at the Smithsonian stop.  We walked in a westerly direction along Independence Avenue and, after passing the Washington Monument, which was closed for inspection and repair after a small earthquake last year, arrived at the WWII Monument.  I was immediately pleased by the design of the place. 

It comprises a central pool with numerous water fountains shooting jets of water into the sky.  Surrounding the pool are two curved walls in an elliptical pattern, north to south, with more fountains.  Behind these walls was a rising walkway with a number of pillars, each of which denotes a state or U.S. territory that was involved in the war.  At the apex of the rising walls was a taller pavilion.  The one on the north was labeled Atlantic and the one directly across from it to the south was called Pacific.  They denoted the theaters of war.  Inside each of these pavilions and overhead was a Baldacchino sculpture of four cast bronze eagles, each with a ribbon in its beak and hanging from the four ribbons was a bronze laurel wreath denoting victory.  Very, very imposing.  Carved into the marble of the walls and fountains around the monument were various quotes by famous men pertaining to the war.  There were also various battlefield place names carved into each of the smaller fountains, each placed near its appropriate theater pavilion.

Along the westernmost wall of the monument were placed 4,048 bronze stars, each of which denoted 100 American service personnel who perished or remained missing during the war.

This number of casualties is surpassed in American history only by the Civil War. 

As I walked around the monument and read the inscriptions there I was taken by the thought, I wish my dad could have seen this.  He would have been justly proud to see what the country he fought so hard for had erected in his honor. 

He never talked much about the war to his sons, but I’m sure he’d have appreciated this gesture by his country to commemorate his and his brothers-in-arms efforts and final victory in that war.  I was saddened that he could not see this, but I felt his spirit move alongside me as I walked this marble place, this place of majesty.  I invited his spirit to view it with me and to take what pleasure it could in the sight.  I made sure to gaze more particularly upon and to note the battles he was involved in – Tunisia and North Africa, Anzio, Rome and the Po Valley.  Places he was intimately knowledgeable of.  I was pleased those places where so much death had occurred were commemorated.

I was glad I was able to be a proxy for my dad by making this pilgrimage in his stead and to revisit and acknowledge, in my small way, the efforts he and his comrades had made so many years ago.  The country did those men proud by this monument and I salute it.

As a side note, the monument did have it’s small token of humor.  In the rear, carved into a small corner of the marble was a cartoon man’s face half hiding behind a wall and the slogan “Kilroy was here” was carved below it.  It commemorated that drawing that seemed to always be drawn somewhere when our troops arrived at an area.  “Kilroy” seemed to always be there first!

My wife’s feet were pretty sore by this time so she planted herself on a bench near the monument and did some people watching while my son and I walked down and viewed the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial which was another quarter-mile or so to the southwest.  It was another of Washington’s imposing monuments, carved out of white granite and depicting the Civil Right’s leader emerging from the rock.  At thirty-feet tall it was very impressive and had drawn a good crowd that afternoon.  My son and I read some of his quotes that were carved close by.  Very interesting and inspirational. 

We had intended to visit the FDR Memorial also, which was further around the tidal pool, but our feet were beginning to bark and we decided to return to the bench where my wife was ensconced and start the long hike back to the Metro station.  We rode the train back to the car and then had a very nice supper at an interesting Mexican restaurant near the motel.  It was a chicken AND Mexican restaurant.  Had a spicy half-chicken with rice and beans for supper, extremely tasty and filling.  Chicken was this place’s especiale and they were quite good at it!   My son and wife’s meals were also quite good.  We noticed a lot of Latinos in the restaurant with us and figured if they were eating there it HAD to be good!  We later found out that a lot of the population of this area of Alexandria was apparently Latino, so the majority at the restaurant really didn’t reflect the quality.  Most of our trip’s restaurant visits had LOTS of Latino customers.  It WAS good, though!

As a side note, while we were waiting at the L’Enfant Metro Station in central Washingto to catch our train home we noticed a group of 20-30 young black men also waiting for a train.  They were loud and boisterous and a bit intimidating to be honest.  As we watched, three D.C. policemen walked by us and took up positions around the group.  They were just watching, but seemed to be very attentive.  As the group’s train arrived and they got onboard, the police entered their car with them just as the doors closed.  They appeared VERY vigilant and we REALLY appreciated their presence. 

I was so glad that we weren’t riding on THAT particular train!

Late that night after we were all in bed and asleep I woke up a bit as one of the numerous emergency sirens was sounding on a vehicle traveling down the street in front of the motel.  While I was half awake I heard a helicopter clattering its way across the sky nearby and I thought is the president heading somewhere?  Or returning?

Silly, I know.  But…  it could have been!
                                                            
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On Sunday we were to tour one of the newer, highly rated museums in Washington, the Newseum.  We arrived in the mid-morning and my wife and I took advantage of the museum’s September offer of a half-off entry fee for seniors.  We’d picked up a 25% off coupon at the motel to use for all of us, but the half-off was even better!  My son used the coupon.

The Newseum is an interactive museum of news and journalism on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington close to the Capital building.  It boasts of 15 theaters and 14 galleries and is a BIG place.  It opened on this site in 2008 and is definitely well worth visiting.  We saw the largest section of Berlin wall outside of Germany along with one of the infamous East Berlin’s wall watchtowers – the only one in the U. S.  We saw the Unabomber’s cabin and the shoe-bomber’s shoes.  We saw the crankshaft from the van used in the first World Trade Center bombing.  The museum also has the antenna from the top of one of the destroyed World Trade Center towers and its gallery commemorates the September 11 attacks with hundreds of front pages from around the world.  Another gallery commemorates Pulitzer Prize winning photographs and the stories around them – very impressive and quite moving.  The Newseum’s mission is “to help the public and the news media understand one another better” and “to raise public awareness of the important role of a free press in a democratic society.”

We really enjoyed this visit and spent a full six hours there.  The entry tickets were good for two days so it was obvious how much “stuff” was available for viewing inside.

We ate in the cafeteria at the museum and were pleasantly impressed by the selection and quality there – it was inspired by Wolfgang Puck.  They had food choices that you NEVER see in this kind of place.  Extremely nice.

We closed the place at 5 p.m. and soon were back in Alexandria for supper at Outback. 

A couple thoughts at this point in our trip:

Washington D. C. is an architecturally beautiful city.  I happen to enjoy marble and granite buildings and Washington has loads of them.  Lots of columns and pillars and statuary – soldiers on horseback, statesmen, heroes and many, many fountains and memorials. 

We saw a few street people in our walks, but not a whole bunch.  What’s a big city without street people, eh? 

I could feel the weight of history there, things that had happened on THAT street, in THAT building, down THAT avenue.  So much of what you learned about American history either happened right there or is commemorated there.  It’s ALL around you!  I mean… we were walking on Pennsylvania Avenue, for goodness sakes!  The President lives there!  You just HAVE to feel a bit awed, doggone it!  I just wish we had a few more weeks to visit and a new pair of legs to utilize the time.  There is just SO MUCH STUFF TO SEE HERE!

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On Monday morning after a Denny’s breakfast (fast, friendly, fairly close and full of Latinos) it was back on the Metro and into town again.  We jumped off at the Capital South stop and walked to the Library of Congress.  It’s just across the way from the Capital building (work with me again with the spelling) and is uphill from the train stop.  They don’t call it capital hill for nothing!  Then there was another hundred or so steps to climb to get into the building.  At least that was what it seemed like.  It’s a beautiful building, all marble and granite (surprise) and it’s not as old as you might think.  The Brits burned a lot of Washington in 1812, the existing Library at that time also, and it was rebuilt.  That new one burnt also a short time later.  This one, the Jefferson Building, was completed in 1897 and was built with STONE rather than wood.  They had finally figured out the secret to keeping a building around for a while!

We took a tour of the building and our docent was a nice middle-aged lady who imparted a massive amount of information to us.  She explained about the architecture and talked about all the history of the place.  We were allowed to climb to a balcony overlooking the main reading room and view that amazingly beautiful sight!  Then it was back down and over to the Jefferson library room.  Thomas Jefferson provided much of the books in the original library.  Some of those burnt in the two fires and he replaced some.  Now, in the room named for him, those remaining books reside.  They are arranged in a circle in humidity-controlled bookcases.  There are three kinds of books in there: ones with blue ribbons which were the remainder of his original contributions, ones with white ribbons were ones which were from his library also, but purchased on the open market later on to replace burnt ones.  The ones with the white spines are ones they know he owned and for which the library is looking for.  They hope to one day rebuild all of his original library.  Our docent also showed us an original hand-written Bible from the 1400’s and, across the room, one of the original Gutenberg Bibles.  I hate to keep using the word impressive, but it was doggone impressive!

Then it was down the hill for a quick Metro ride and on to the International Spy Museum.  This was my wife and son’s “must see” from the list I had made and I was glad they had.  It’s a privately owned museum dedicated to the field of espionage and is located in the Penn Quarter of Washington.  The museum contains over 600 artifacts in over 20,000 square feet of museum.  The tour of the museum is unique insofar as you have to select from one of 16 cover identities for yourself upon entering the building and memorize facts about that person.  You’re tested about your “cover” not long after continuing on in the museum.  Sometimes the guides will even stop you and ask for your identity!  It gives the tour the flavor of how spies actually feel.  If you’ve ever been intrigued by the spy game, this is just the place for you.  Very interesting and full of hands-on stuff pertaining to… well… spies, of course!

After a quickie late lunch at the museum café we rode the Metro to a stop near the Pentagon called Crystal City.  Outside that stop there is a series of underground stores called, appropriately, The Crystal City Shops.  Kind of an underground mall.  We wandered around there for a while, grabbed a drink and some souvenirs of the trip before returning to our last Metro stop and our car.  We gave our leftover Metro tickets to a lady waiting for a bus as they still had some value on them and we hated to just pitch them.  She was quite grateful!

Supper that night was at Famous Dave’s Barbecue.  Very tasty barbecue, beans, ribs, chops, etc. and we exhibited our customary polite meal behaviors.  Not!  We ate like the depicted hogs on the restaurant’s walls, sauce up to our elbows and dripping from our lips.  Good eats!

Next morning early it was doughnuts and coffee/milk for the road and then join the crowds on the beltway on their morning commute.  We were lucky insofar as we were outbound from Washington as opposed to the poor souls that were inbound.  We watched thousands of approaching headlights for what seemed like 50 miles as we left town in the rain.  Very, very glad I didn’t have to do that daily!

We drove through the rain, off-and-on, most of the way home as a final exclamation point to the vacation.

Washington, D. C. is as much a place of mind as a real place.  It exists as an ideal as well as an actuality.  I think that concept might have been on my mind a lot as I walked those wide avenues and tree-lined plazas – the idealized Washington world of television and movies and history books interleaving with the reality of east coast sunshine on Federal marble and street people sleeping in doorsteps. 

It’s an interesting place.  Visit someday if you can.

Chicken Dance

Chicken Dance

So I'm driving to work this afternoon, minding my own business and with my mind a million miles away when I see this detour sign. Now of course I knew about this detour – it was no surprise as it's been up for several weeks now. The son-of-a-gun is smack dab in the middle of my drive from home to work and is becoming a genuine pain in the... Well, lets just say it's inconvenient.

The “official” detour that the state recommends you follow would take me miles and miles out of my way, quite a few miles, actually. You see, when they close a State highway around here because of construction, apparently they have to route traffic around the detour by using other state highways and interstates. If I followed the state-mandated detour my 45-minute-trip would probably be an hour-and-a-quarter. And that would be adding insult to injury.

I did some online map investigations before they closed the road and found a quicker round-a-bout that wasn't near as lengthy. I turn left about a mile before the closure then do a right turn about a quarter mile up that road. Then it's another right turn and I'm soon back on the state highway. Probably only a few minutes out of the way all told. Those side roads are quite a bit narrower than the state highway, though, and you have to play a little chicken with the delivery trucks also using the “secret” way around. You have to pay closer attention and be careful. And take even more care when you catch a big ol' semi sneaking along the same roads.

I experimented with several other routes from home to work but discovered that I wasn't comfortable with them for a number of reasons. One was way out in the boonies and was, if truth be told, a bit creepy to travel late at night when I was returning home. Another one also had road construction on it that was even more inconvenient than my “normal” route. And other alternatives were just too far out of my way.

I'm getting fairly comfortable with my little detour now. I'll probably have to use it for another 3-4 weeks. Maybe. It's hard to guess how long a road construction project will take. If you check their schedules online you'll probably be disappointed when the projected completion times are missed, sometimes by a lot. But that's the way the cookie crumbles during summertime construction season.

But while I was on my drive today, thinking my deep thoughts, and the real reason why I sorta forgot about the detour was... chicken.

I was kicking around in my head the latest brouhaha banging around on the airwaves and being touted all over social media. You know, the stuff about Chick-fil-A.

Now don't hold me too close to the fire for what I recall the whole mess is about because I might be wrong on a few aspects, but what I seem to get out of what's been broadcast is this: The owner, or ownership of Chick-fil-A has gone on record, quite vocally apparently, about his displeasure with gay marriage and, accordingly, his abhorrence of the gay lifestyle.

And, generally, gays as a group.

This very public statement has lead to a veritable firestorm of approval and disapproval from just who you'd think it would; the militant gays and the militant anti-gays.

Various demonstrations of support for the ownership have led to an big uptick in sales at a number of the outlets of this particular chicken sandwich. Other counter-demonstrations have been staged by the gays to oppose the stance the ownership has stated.

So I've watched the news reports and seen the videos and I've read statements and viewpoints from friends and acquaintances on Facebook.

Most of them have agreed with the Chick-fil-A stance.

Apparently there's a LOT of gay haters and gay marriage haters out there.

And I wonder about that.

I suppose the fact that I live in a very conservative area of the country might have something to do with it. I also suppose that it's a fact that a large percentage of my friends are religious to one degree or another and that also might also explain some of the furor.

But, to be honest, I'm having a hard time mustering up any support for this particular chicken sandwich seller.

I have friends who have gay children. I've met a lot of them. They're mostly nice people and they don't have big G's tattooed to their foreheads so they can be identified. Most of them are quite indistinguishable from us purportedly “normal” folks and they eat chicken sandwiches the same as the rest of us do.

One bite at at time.

From what I've read, I guess it's been scientifically proven that “gayness” is genetically driven and is no more a “choice” for the person who's gay than skin color, eye color or left-handedness. No choice at all.

Now I'm sure that many of my friends will disagree with me. Maybe even most of them. Maybe they've read other articles or have listened to their religious leaders who swear that the opposite is true – that gayness IS a choice and CAN be abrogated if you have enough gumption or will or if they pray hard enough. It's a free country. You're allowed to believe what you want.

They might even have more supporters of that viewpoint than I have of mine.

But hating the gays, to me at least, just feels WAY too much like hating the Jews in Nazi Germany. There's WAY too many similarities to make me comfortable. Hitler hated the gays too. They had to wear pink triangles on their outer clothing like the Jews had to wear yellow stars of David. His hate encompassed the Jews, the Catholics, the Gypsies, the mentally-deficient, and others. The man had LOTS of hate in him.

Maybe you belong to one of the groups he hated.

I'm also sure that a number of my friends will say that I'm naïve, I'm misinformed, I'm a dupe of the liberals or that I'm a closet gay myself.

Sorry to disappoint. No offense to the gays out there but I have to report that being attracted to another man just isn't in my playbook. That dog definitely won't hunt.

But hate them?

Sorry again. Not gonna happen.

I'll save my hatred for the child molester, the religious extremist trying to kill me and destroy my country and way of life. I'll save it for the mass murderer, the drug cartels and the bullies of every age and in every walk of life.

And don't forget that the politicians LOVE to see clashes like this. It takes the heat off their inability to accomplish pretty much anything these days. They are the ones who ought to merit our animosity and ire, if not some hatred also.

Is this gay-bashing business something new in the world? Of course not. In previous years it was the Blacks that drew the ire of the majority. Before that it was the Irish, the Italians, the Catholics, the Jews, the Orientals, the Mexicans, the “insert previously-oppressed group here”. If you can come up with a derogatory name for any of these groups then they were once the hated minority. Everyone hated them. But who hates them now?

Only the ones that can't let go of their prejudices. And maybe you?

So, when all is said and done and after I'm done hating all the REALLY despicable monsters that are out there, maybe I'll save a little bit for the guys putting up the detour signs that aggravate me so much and make me drive WAY out of my way. Those sons-a-guns REALLY deserve it!

And I'll get my chicken sandwich from McDonald's or Wendy's, thank you very much.

Kodachrome Memories

Kodachrome Memories

A couple months ago when my wife and I returned home from running some errands, we met our son waiting for us at our back door. He told us that my step-sister Kathy had dropped off some boxes on the front porch sometime that afternoon while he'd been sleeping and he'd brought them into the house. There'd been a short note attached to them stating that she had been cleaning out her mom's condo after her mom vacated it and that the boxes contained some of my father's things from the old days that her mom no longer wanted. And that she would call and explain more later. When we got to the living room we saw three good-sized boxes stacked up on the floor. The note my son had referred to was on the topmost box written in my sister's precise handwriting and generally said what my son had mentioned.

A little family history:

My mother passed away in 1972 and dad remarried in '76. The new couple bought a house and consolidated their families and their possessions. My dad passed away in 1991 at the age of 70 and, not long after that event, his widow, my step-mother, moved into a condominium. A lot of their belongings from their combined household which were bulky and wouldn't fit into the smaller living space she was moving into were given to the children of each spouse. I ended up receiving a dining room suite and a 12-piece setting of Noritake china, both of which had been my birth mother's and had been in the house I grew up in. A lot of the smaller things that belonged to my step-mother and my dad had ended up going with her to the condo.

This remained the situation until recently, when my step-mother's Alzheimer's became too bad to allow her to live by herself. Kathy explored some options and finally decided to move her into an assisted living facility near where she resides and where she would be more easily looked after by the staff of the facility and by herself.

This move again whittled down the possessions of my step-mother, and my brother and I again became recipients of some more of dad's “stuff”

I carried the boxes upstairs, set them down and stood there staring at them. Some more of dad's stuff, I thought. Man oh man. He's been gone 22 years and this stuff is bringing him right back. After a few minutes woolgathering and thinking deep thoughts about the old days, I sighed and took an inventory of the contents. There were a lot of photographic slides which I would need to investigate at some time, some glassware with our last name's initial, “F”, etched onto them, a couple of photo albums which would also bear some future investigation and a lot of dad's correspondence with many of his Army friends. He'd gotten back in touch with them in his later years and had gone to a number of WWII reunions to see them. And, apparently, saved ALL the correspondence with them relating to those reunions. There were also some firearm cleaning supplies from his hunting days. Among the boxes was also the American flag which had been draped over his coffin back in '91 and which was presented to his widow, my step-mother, upon his death.

I plan to do one of two things with the flag: to get a presentation case for it and put it in a place of honor in my house or else donate it to a local cemetery where it would be flown for a period of time as tribute to my dad and to the servicemen interred there. I still haven't made my mind up about that.

Most of the balance of the items were cameras and lenses he'd used over his lifetime. One was an old friend; a Mercury half-slide camera that dated back to the mid-to-late 1940's. He'd used that camera when I was very young and took lots and lots of pictures of his three sons, my brothers and I, as we were growing up along with various and sundry other subjects. He particularly liked taking pictures of parades and of Christmas celebrations. Many, many of them. I have all of his slides from those days.

As a side note, there is an interesting story about that particular Mercury camera.

Back in the late '40's when dad was a newlywed and I was an infant, he used to walk to work. And while on this walk, he used to pass by a camera shop. And in the front window of the camera shop sat a brand-new Mercury 35mm camera. It had a price on it that was beyond dad's ability to pay at that time in his life. So he would just stop for a moment and wish. The next day on his way to work he noticed that the shiny new camera in the front window was still there, but on that day the price had been reduced! There was also a notice that the price on that camera would be reduced a little bit each day until it was bought. The kicker was... this was ONLY for that particular camera. When it was gone, it was gone.

So dad would do his walk each day and each day watch the price on the camera, HIS camera as he began to think of it, go down and down and down. He absolutely KNEW that it would be gone LONG before he could afford it. So each day was a torture to him until he arrived at the shop and saw the camera was still there and the price was again lower. Then his torment would begin again.

I imagine the agonies he went through, checking his monetary position, thinking about his expenses, wanting the camera more and more each day as he passed it by. I imagine the discussions he would have had with my mom. I think about how he would have weighed his options, his dollars, his needs.

One day, apparently, the camera finally reached a price which he felt he could afford. He had to have been terrified that the camera would be sold that day, so he rushed in and bought it. I'm sure he was tickled to death with the camera and I know he shot roll after roll of film through it for the next 20 years or so. I have about a million of those slides to prove it!

When I enlisted into the Air Force in 1965, he presented me with that camera to take with me and I used it for the first year or so of my enlistment. The camera was manually operated and I had to set the exposure time and the aperture every shot I took. I learned a lot about photography having to do this. Eventually I bought a new SLR for myself and relegated the Mercury to storage.

Back in the boxes I also found the latest camera he had used. My younger brother was in the Navy in the early '70's and knew dad was “in the market” for a new camera at that time. He decided to surprise him with one and ended up buying a new Asahi Pentax SLR camera while he was in Japan, pretty high-end for the time period. Dad was delighted with the gift and used that camera for the rest of his life. As a matter of fact, there was still a roll of exposed Kodachrome film in the camera when I got it recently. I had it developed, but it was all black. So the last 20 exposures that dad shot will have to remain a mystery.

He had also bought several lenses for that camera and they were there in the box also.

So what was I to do with this unexpected delivery, this bounty from years past?

I phoned my brother in California and found out that he wasn't really interested in any of the keepsakes and I could do with them as I wished. The cameras were both film cameras and I no longer shot film, only digital, so I really didn't want them for myself. So I decided to sell the camera gear on Ebay.

The old Mercury sold first to a buyer in the U.S., perhaps in Pennsylvania? I don't really remember. The newer Pentax went to a gentleman in Bangkok, Thailand as did one of the extra lenses. Another lens sold just the other day to a buyer in Torrance, California. The last lens dad owned, a big telephoto, is still out there for sale.

I advertized the cameras truthfully, describing their good points and their flaws. The folks buying them knew what they were getting. I also described, just a little, the man who had owned them before. How meticulous he was with his tools and how well he cared for his property and his belongings. I also mentioned in passing how much he enjoyed using these devices and how much pleasure the photos he took gave him and his family.

I thought about the new owners of dad's cameras and lenses and I thought about how they had been sent, literally, both close to home and halfway around the world. I hoped that the new owners would cherish these cameras and take care of them like dad used to. Or, if they were going into the stock of a reseller, that the eventual new owners that would buy them would do likewise.

I wish I could tell them all the story of dad's ownership of them, how he loved photography and how he loved those cameras.

I like to think that a little of dad might still be attached to those cameras, hanging around somewhere, and that maybe his hand might reach down from some cloud in the heavens to help the new owners make good photos with them again, to steady their hands and to point out what would make a good picture. Maybe even of some parade or some Christmas celebration!

I think he'd like doing that.

Post Cruise Blues

Post Cruise Blues

The melancholy is really starting to kick in now. I'm finding myself sad for no particular reason and life seems all of a sudden so bittersweet. But when I ponder the reason for my melancholy, it's obvious what the problem is.

For example...

When I came home last night after work and went to my bedroom, the bed wasn't crisply made and turned down for the night in a precise 45-degree fold. There wasn't a cute little towel animal happily sitting on the fresh bedding looking at me and there weren't two delicious foil-wrapped chocolates laying next to the animal inviting me to taste them. Instead there was a snoozing wife taking up most of the bed with Mentholatum rubbed all over her nose to help her breath during her head cold.

When I woke up in the morning the room wasn't gently swaying and I knew with an absolute certainty that there wasn't going to be a sunny new country sitting outside my front door waiting for my delighted gaze and beckoning me to stroll its quaint streets, taste its exotic foods and to meet its fascinating people.

I knew without a doubt that a smiling steward wouldn't be greeting me by name when I exited my bedroom and that my breakfast would not be ready for me when I got to the kitchen. I'd have to rustle it up for myself and there would NOT be four dozen choices to pick from.

I also knew that I would be going to work this afternoon instead of perusing a listing of various activities I could sample throughout the entire day that would entertain, enlighten and fascinate me. And probably tickle my funny bone in the process.

The simple truth was that our long-awaited spring cruise was, sadly, over.

(cue the violin music)

From the moment of leaving our front door to returning over a week later there had been 207 hours of vacation with a big capital “V”. And those more-than-eight-days went by like a flash of lightning in a June thunderstorm, like the flash-bang of an aerial salute at the fireworks on the Fourth of July.

It went by so incredibly fast!

I knew while we were experiencing it that I should dig in my heels to slow down the time, I should grab hold of something to extend the experience, to keep it from running by so fast!

And I tried! Honestly!

But time spent on vacation always seems to bypass the laws of physics that it keeps so well during other time periods. Time swoops and dives and laughs and hurtles and zooooooooooooooooms along, careening pell-mell towards the finish line, the last day of vacation, like a speeding bullet hungry for its target. It seemed as if my wife and I only had time to look at each other and to say, “Boy, this is really...” and before the word “great” could be spoken, the week was over and we were back home doing the same-old, same-old.

But when I go back and study the pictures we took, the trip comes back to me, the experiences are remembered and the fun we had is re-experienced. Looking back through the pictures I now have time to digest the trip and to more thoroughly savor the essence of each and every adventure. And I get to do so this time without having to brush sand off my toes, without having to again endure the jellyfish sting in my leg, without all the normal aches and pains of late-middle-aged folks doing too much for too long a period of time. And also without sweat dripping from my face from a hot tropical sun, without the discomfort of an upset belly from too much rich food for too many meals, without the head cold that your wife had at the beginning of the trip and you had at the end. You can now remember the experiences clean and sharp with all the various nuances intact and clear.

I look at the pictures and remember the dusty brown donkeys and cattle in the road on a hot afternoon on an unhurried desert island. I can see the incredibly blue waves dancing in the harbor of another palm-studded Caribbean island and feel their spray against my sunburned face. I can again savor the spicy bite of a smoky hot sauce drizzled on a sizzling conch fritter fresh out of the hot oil. I can vividly recall my wife sitting next to me and sipping a cool frosty drink in a beautiful lounge and how she laughed at a comedian's crude humor. I can again feel in my bones the magnificent white ship that enveloped us and cared for us and carried us to enchanted places on a sparkling blue tropical sea.

And how, in that week, it became our home.

It may be that I'm a romantic and need time and space to totally absorb a place, an event, an experience to make it real, but sometimes the memory of these things is more poignant, more vivid and stronger than the actual experience itself. It sometimes seems that you can be too busy doing something to actually enjoy the doing of it.

There were a few times, however, during the trip when I found myself in the middle of something and felt my mind actually step back and say, “Wow! This is soooooooo cool!” One of those times was when I was standing in a crowd in Miami the night before the cruise listening to a group play wild Cuban salsa music, listening to the attractive female singer belt out the Spanish lyrics in her strong voice and watching the crowd move with the irresistible rhythm. I found my feet tapping of their own accord and my body swaying as the music grabbed me and made me one with the crowd. Another time was standing at Mountaintop on St. Thomas gazing northward toward the Atlantic Ocean, seeing the beauty of Magen's Bay at my feet and the marvelous hilly islands stretching off into the hazy blue distance. I could feel through my feet the long, long history and the rock-ribbed strength of this little green island sitting it its blue, blue sea.

And I recall the last night on-board at the finish of our meal in the opulent Golden Dining Room when the stewards sang the song that I knew was coming from the first moment we stepped on the ship, the song that signified that the cruise was over. They sang the “Leaving on a Fun Ship” song to the tune of “Leaving on a Jet Plane”. We've only experienced it once before, but it drew the same response from us as the first time, an intense sadness that the cruise was over. My wife and I were so choked up we could hardly speak for long minutes after the song faded. We could see tears in each others eyes as the crew voiced the traditional song for us. It reminded us that, for our week on the ship, we were family. All 3,000 of us, along with another thousand crew. Sure, there were 3,000 other folks there the previous week and another 3,000 were waiting to come aboard when we left, but for OUR week, this was OUR ship, OUR Glory, OUR family and it was so very, very sad to say goodbye.

Tradition says that if you get teary and choked up when you hear this song it means you had a good cruise.

Well folks, we had a GREAT cruise.

Now excuse me while I go back and look at some pictures again.

And check some sailing times for our next cruise!

Glory Days

Glory Days

Around the middle of March, 2011, a group of four people sat down and formalized their intentions to vacation together in April of 2012. The four people were myself, my wife Judy and our friends Dan and Alice. This fearsome foursome placed a down payment on an “Exotic Caribbean Cruise”, toasted the momentous occasion with a fine bottle of wine and then settled down to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And sometime early-on in that stretch of time they realized that it would be over 400 days until they sailed.

F-o-u-r h-u-n-d-r-e-d d-a-y-s!

And after that excruciatingly long period of time had finally passed, the often-thought about and long-hoped for day had, at last, finally come around.

It was time to pack the bags, kiss the dog, put the kid in the kennel, scurry on down to the airport and head for Miami.

The following pages chronicle the adventures and the fun times of that trip. Come along if you care to.

***

On Saturday, April 21 our long-awaited vacation had arrived. My wife Judy and I had a hard time sleeping the previous night. That was our normal modus operandi for the day before a vacation. The big difference in this one as compared to most of the others was the fact that we did NOT have to get up at the crack of dawn (or before) to head on out. We weren't planning on leaving the house until 10 am. So after a semi-restful night and a leisurely breakfast, we bade a fond farewell to the dog and son who were remaining behind and drove to Columbus. We arrived around noon in a cold drizzle. Ohio was letting us know that it was still EARLY spring in these climes and it made us eager for the more comfortable temperatures that were sure to await us in Florida. Our flight left around 3:30 that afternoon and, after an uneventful flight, we arrived at Fort Lauderdale around 6. The transportation company I'd contracted with to drive us to Miami was right up to speed and picked us up virtually when we walked out of the terminal with our luggage. After our driver Miguel dropped us off at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami, we checked in and checked out our new digs. Our rooms were extremely nice and gave us great views of the area. We were hungry by that time so we grabbed a taxi to the Bayside Market a few blocks from the hotel. Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company Restaurant was located there and that's were we had supper. The food was good and the waitress was a good one. She quizzed us on the Forest Gump movie after we'd eaten. It was all in fun.

After supper we wandered into the nearby Bayside Market. This is an open-air mall right alongside the bay in downtown Miami. The air was balmy and it was a perfect night to look into the shops and kiosks selling their wares. I heard some music with a definite Latin beat and looked around until I found the source. They had a small stage set up next to the water and several rows of seats in front of it. On the stage was a group performing. Three or four men playing instruments and a lady singer. There was a substantial crowd gathered around, a few dozen dancing and the rest swaying and grooving to the music. I looked up the name of the group after I got home and found out it was called “Maria con Azucar”. That's Spanish for Maria with Sugar. Excellent salsa music. I think it was Salsa. Very Latin, mostly sung in Spanish and with a wonderful beat. We stayed there and grooved to the rhythm for quite a while.

While enjoying the music I looked around a bit. Most of the folks around us were definitely Hispanic, probably Cuban, as Miami has a vast Cuban population. They seemed a friendly folk on the most part, and I felt comfortable there. Maybe I was naïve, but I really dug the Cuban ambiance.

After a great strawberry daiquiri we adjourned back to the hotel. As a Miami Heat game was letting out right next door, taking a taxi back to the hotel was virtually impossible, so we walked. It was only a couple blocks and, at least for me, the tropical night was velvet on my skin and quite invigorating. We were back to the hotel by 11 and soon slumbering in our fancy hotel rooms.

***

Sunday morning dawned bright and warm in Miami and we were up around 8. Breakfast for Judy and I was a coffee and pastry at the Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel. The in-house restaurant was very fancy with commensurate prices, so the choice of Starbucks was easy for us. Around 10:30 we gathered our luggage and grabbed a cab to the pier. The boarding went quite smoothly and we were on board the Glory easily by noon. We lunched at the Red Sail Buffet and did a little ship exploring until our staterooms were ready at 1:30.

We went for the mandatory lifeboat drill a bit later on deck four. We found out later that the U.S. Coast Guard was performing some sort of inspection that day, so our drill was VERY intensive. All the passengers were required to line up at their muster stations on the outside boat deck to listen to the instructions. When we were all there, which took a while, we were standing in a five-deep line the whole length of the ship, both sides. Normally the instructions are given in English, but since this was a SPECIAL one, they repeated ALL the instructions in Spanish and German. Holy moly! It was excruciatingly long! But I didn't really begrudge the time due to the recent capsizing of the Costa Concordia in Italy. I wanted to know what to do in an emergency!

Sail away was at 4 o'clock and we watched the million-dollar yachts and multi-million-dollar homes and condos slip by as we headed out into the Atlantic.

We found our dining room at 6 o'clock for our first dinner aboard. We were in the Golden Dining Room (the other one was the Platinum Dining Room). We had three dining room stewards, Fritz who was, perhaps, Indonesian; Monica who was Slovakian and Karieda who was Phillipino. Our drink steward was Johnny. As this day was our traveling companion Dan's birthday, we surprised him with a chocolate cake after dinner. The stewards put a candle in it and had Dan blow it out. Then they all sang happy birthday. It was nice! Dan was surprised and happy – chocolate is his fave!

After supper we wandered into the casino and played the slots for a little while. After that we attended the “Welcome Aboard” show in the Amber Palace Showroom. We saw the Cruise Director Trevor and his ACD John. We also met the first two comedians that would perform on board this week. We'd get two new ones in San Juan. It was a nice intro to the ship and what to expect for the week.

Back to the cabin by 11:30 and off to dreamland with the bed gently rocking on the waves.

***

On Monday we were up around 7:30 and breakfasted with Alice and Dan in the Red Sail Buffet. We sat at a window seat and gazed out at Nassau, Bahamas. We returned to our cabins, applied sunscreen and then left the boat for a day's exploring. The sea water around here is a remarkably clear turquoise color, a striking shade of blue that almost looks artificial.

Getting from the ship into Nassau itself entailed a bit of a walk on the pier – we were docked at the furthest berth as two Disney ships, the Magic and the Dream were closer in. Then you entered a long building and had to walk the entire length of it before getting to an exit to the town. And, of course, the building was full of places to spend your money! We discovered that all the ports would be set up similarly.

After running this gauntlet, the women split off to do some shopping and Dan and I took a hike up a hill toward a water tower. I wanted to get a geocache near there. After a strenuous walk uphill we arrived at a man-made cut in the rocky hillside with a long stone staircase at the end of it. This was the famous Queen's Staircase. While searching for the geocache in the cut we were approached by a Bahamian gentleman who assisted us in finding the hidden caches and regaled us with the story of the area. It was fascinating and we totally enjoyed his company and humor. He was, of course, one of the guides of the area and we tipped him generously for his efforts. We also greatly enjoyed his Bahamian accent. A lot of the people of the Caribbean speak quite similiarly as we were to find during our trip, especially in St. Thomas and Grand Turk. We then climbed the staircase – 64 steps – one step for each year of Queen Victoria's reign.

On top of the staircase was Ft. Fincastle, one of the apparently inexhaustible supply of forts in the Caribbean. There was obviously LOTS of fighting going on in these parts in the old days. This particular fort was built in the shape of a paddle wheel steamship, for what reason I never did find out. We took many pictures from the top of this fort as the view was spectacular from there with the ships at dock below us and the fabulous Atlantis Resort just across the bay on Paradise Island.

After getting our fill of the view we headed downhill (hurrah!) toward Bay Street, the main street of Nassau where all the shops were. We ambled through a few on our way back to the ship. We couldn't stay too long as we were due to leave at 2 in the afternoon. We got back on board the ship around noon and the women arrived at 1.

We lunched again at the buffet (we did that a lot that week). Judy and I ate at the fish 'n chips place on the 2^nd level of the Red Sail. It was nice – real similar to perhaps Long John Silver's fish except you could also get some cold dishes too, like ceviche.

Sail away from Nassau was soon after that and we took some more pictures. We didn't get off exactly on time as we had some runners to wait a bit for. Watching the runners, people who almost miss the boat and have to run for it, seems to be almost a sport amongst some cruisers. One lady was ambling back to the boat until she saw some crew members yelling at her and motioning her to hurry. She started jogging then! It was funny. In a conversation with a crew member later that evening they said that the ships quite frequently left passengers on Nassau. They'd get drunk and just forget they needed to get back on board!

That'd be awful!

The wind had freshened during our stay in port, so the rest of the day was a bit bouncy. I'd been concerned about whether I might end up seasick sometime, but was just fine.

I then attended a seminar in the spa on how to eliminate back pain. It was (are you waiting for it) a sales pitch for shoe inserts! For a measly $189! What a steal! I was sooooooo surprised! Not.

I then luxuriated in a soon-to-be-repeated indulgence for the week. I took a lil' nap!

That evening we had reservations at the Steakhouse Restaurant on board. This is the “for extra fee” place that I'd read such glowing reviews on. We all put our fancy duds on and headed up there. Unfortunately our group had to give the Steakhouse a thumbs-down. At best the food was so-so. I had escargot for the appetizer, surf 'n turf for the entree and a baked apple pastry for dessert. The fillet mignon was NOT tender and the service was quite slow and spotty. They even delivered the wrong dishes to us – Alice got my steak and I got hers. For supposedly being the PREMIER dining spot on the ship we were disappointed. The manager offered us a bottle of wine for our troubles but we declined. We just wanted out of there.

We then changed into more comfortable clothes and went to the Punchliner Comedy club where we watched a Cuban comedian, Al Romero. He was fairly funny. We believed the other comedian would be funnier and later found out he was. My lower back was really hurting about this time, probably from all the walking, step-climbing, etc. I'd done, so we headed back to the cabin. The ship was still moving fairly noticeably, but sleeping with the motion was like being rocked in the cradle.

It was a nice day for our introduction to the Caribbean, a nice Nassau day.

***

Tuesday was an “at sea” day as our ship had to make the long trek south-by-southeast from Nassau to St. Thomas. Judy and I arose around 9 am to a day with low clouds and threatening rain. Breakfast was again at the Red Sail on the Lido deck. After that we wandered on down to the Amber Palace to watch the “Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard” show with Trevor Block, our Cruise Director. He talked a bunch about what was coming up on the islands ahead of us and what else we could do on the ship. He was funny and quite informative. Then it was time for the “Fun Finds Shopping Show” with Diamond Dominique. It consisted of LOTS of sales pitching for the upcoming stops, especially St. Thomas and San Juan. She particularly pitched some specific jewelry stores in the upcoming stops. She ain't called “Diamond” Dominique for nuttin'! We hoped for some prizes she was awarding, but didn't get lucky.

Had jerk chicken for lunch (I loved it, Judy didn't) and watched the parade of cruisers walking by in the passageway. I was amazed by the diversity of the people. It's really a cosmopolitan crowd. You're just as likely to hear French or German or Spanish as English. Or, then again, one of the hundreds of other languages common on cruise ships. You sort of expect that from the crew who are almost totally non-English as their primary language, but there were LOTS of foreign language passengers aboard also. Spanish might have been the predominant one actually.

By the way, the chocolate frozen yogurt was wonderful!

We then strolled to the open Lido deck by the pool and jumbo screen and watched the end of the hairy chest contest which is a staple on most cruises. It soon started raining, so we ducked under cover. It had been threatening to rain most of the day. Just glad it wasn't a port day.

We adjourned to the cabin and soon my bride was snoozing. For some reason I wasn't too sleepy at the moment, so I went to my “special” deck. I'd read about a “secret” door that led to a deck on the ship that most folks didn't know about. I found the door at the bow end of deck 7 and it opened to a deck directly under the bridge. Totally empty. I stood there a while watching flying fish and hoping for a dolphin when a lady approached smoking a cigarette. We chatted a bit – she was originally from Columbus, Ohio – and she told me that a whale had been spotted on the port side of the ship earlier that day. Kinda wished I'd had seen that. Oh well...

When I got back to our cabin I found a stuffed squirrel plush toy in our mailbox! Alice, of course. She wanted to give me a “thank you” gift for all the planning I'd done for the trip. I thought it was fun and thanked her for her thoughtfulness.

Went to our first “elegant” night supper at 6 pm. It was a nice dinner. I had stuffed mushrooms and strawberry soup for appetizers, lobster tail and shrimp for my entree. Judy had a fine-looking prime rib for her entree. Of course it was warm chocolate melting cake for all of us for dessert. We chatted with our steward Karieda for a bit. He's married to one of the other stewards, a pretty lady, and they have one more month to serve before leaving the ship for a 2-month leave at home. After that they planned to take another contract on another Carnival ship in the Mediterranean. Sounded nice! We had some formal photos taken after supper and then headed back to the cabin to change clothes and head to the comedy club again. We watched Mark Simmons this time and he was REALY funny. After that we hit the casino. I had a $5 matching credit from some drinks we'd bought, so I matched it with another $5 on the roulette table and won – then lost the next 3 rolls. I pulled out a $20 and bought some more chips. Played about an hour and cashed out $53. I was up and felt pretty good. I'm definitely NOT a high-roller, but up is up and that's good enough.

***

On Wednesday the ship docked in St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands, while we were eating breakfast in the Platinum Dining Room. We wanted to get in at least one breakfast that wasn't in the buffet. Had Eggs Benedict. I seem to remember it being better the last time I'd eaten it, but my taste buds have been “off” for a while so it just could have been me.

We left the boat at 10:15. We had reservations with a tour guide named Sunny Liston and found his jitney bus quickly. He was waiting for his other customers and would not leave until 11. Dan and I walked over to the cache I wanted to get on St. Thomas while we waited. It was about 600 feet from the jitney. We returned and Sunny started his tour at 11.

Sunny is QUITE the fascinating island character. He started his banter as the jitney pulled out of the parking lot near the docks, explaining this and that as he headed out. Since they were having carnival on St. Thomas that week and the Charlotte Amalie (the main town of the island) shopping area would be a traffic nightmare, he skipped the short shopping part of the tour altogether and started up the mountain. St. Thomas traffic drives on the left, similar to Nassau which we'd seen two days ago. The roads are narrow and twisty. Sunny drove to a parking area about half-way up the mountain and stopped. He got out, stood on a rock and commenced to describe the view from that vantage point. It looked out over the Caribbean side of the island with the cruise ships in the background. He talked about the island, the other islands in view, some of the history of the area and peppered his talk with jokes and island humor. We all really enjoyed it. Then it was back on the bus and hang on as he drove up the switchbacks to Mountaintop. When we reached this area, he parked and led us to an area where we could see the northern part of the island, the Atlantic side. There were more islands in the distance which he talked about and a beautiful bay and beach spread out at our feet. It's called Magen's Bay. National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveler have rated it as one of the best 10 beaches in the world. It was very pretty.

We were then allowed 20 minutes to wander through the gift shop located there and to try, if we wanted, one of the “World Famous Banana Daiquiris” that they mixed up there. As a side note, they were VERY good!

We then climbed back aboard the jitney for the hair-raising trip down the mountain. As he careened along the narrow streets he played his CD of Soca music (Soul Calypso) at a mighty volume, sang along and encouraged us passengers to join in at appropriate points. With banana daiquiris flowing through our systems and the great music playing we hollered along when we were supposed to and totally dug the fun ride. Soon he arrived at Magen's Bay Beach where he dropped off about half the busload of people with a promise to pick them up in two and a half hours. He then zoomed over to the eastern part of the island to Coki Point Beach where the rest of us alighted for our apportioned two and a half hours of beach time.

Coki Point Beach is another beauty spot of St. Thomas with sparkling clear blue water and soft white sand. We rented some chairs and an umbrella and set up on the beach. I'd also got a mask and snorkel to see the read-about fish swimming near there. As promised, about a hundreds yards south, near some rocks in the water swam a multitude of brightly-colored tropical fish. The little store that rented the mask also provided a Milk Bone dog biscuit to use as fish food to attract the fish, which it did. Alice and I puttered around quite a while in the water while Dan and Judy stayed under cover. They have problems with too much sun and were being careful. As it turned out, I should have followed their example as I contracted a dandy sunburn for the day. I'd dosed with sunscreen earlier but it must have washed off in the salt water. A lady walked by our chairs with menus from her beach eatery and we ordered some drinks and french fries. When she returned with the order she also had a free shot of the local rum for anyone interested. I volunteered and it was good!

We left the beach and tried to get some of the sand off of us, but it was pretty hopeless. Sunny returned as promised and drove us back to the ship docks. We noticed on this drive that gas was around $4.99 on the island. After returning to the docks I slipped into a nearby grocery for some black rum that I'd promised some people back home. Hopefully it would make it back in our suitcases without being broken in transit.

We were back on the ship at 4:15 and the ship slipped its moorings and returned to sea at 6.

Supper was in the Main Dining Room. I had a nice mixed seafood dish and Judy had beef strogonoff. Alice and Dan entered the dining room from the rear entrance and were thrown off by it as the room looked identical from either end. They tried to sit down at another table and were gently escorted by some stewards to the correct one where Judy and I were waiting and grinning at their mix-up!

I had noticed a stinging in my lower left leg since leaving our beach and it was smarting a bit right then. I think something in the water had stung me, perhaps a small jelly fish??? It smarted for about 12 hours before subsiding.

The performance in the Amber Palace that night was a magic and dance routine. The magician was VERY good, the illusions were super and the dance was very energetic and kind of dark with booming moody music casting a suspenseful aura to all that went on. Totally enjoyable.

We were bushed so we went directly to the cabin and bed after the performance. What old party poopers we were!

***

Up on Thursday at 7:15, showered/shaved and breakfasted in the Red Sail again. Sat by a window and looked at San Juan, Puerto Rico, which had “magically” appeared earlier that morning. Another beautiful, sunny Caribbean day! We are soooooo lucky! It's becoming a daily miracle to wake up and see another country just outside the window.

Dan and Alice ate at the Platinum Restaurant again for their breakfast. They'd been staying up late and had a harder time arising in the a.m.

As I had an hour or so to kill before Alice and Dan would be ready to leave to tour the island, I ducked out by myself early and grabbed a geocache which was located about a quarter-mile east of where the ship was docked. The cache site was a pretty little harbor-side park with a hundred pigeons around to keep the park visitors company. I found the cache quickly and returned to the ship. The four of us finally got off together around 10. We walked across the street and caught one of the free trolleys for our explorations. Judy and Alice got on the one that was supposed to go to the shopping areas in Old San Juan first. We waved them goodbye and wished them well. Dan and I hopped on the next one that was to go to the nearby forts. We rode it through really heavy traffic out to El Morro, the fort located on the east side of the peninsula. It's a massive stone fortress that looks out over the blue water. We wandered over this National Park site and took lots of pictures. Even saw a “friendly” iguana on one of the massive stone walls. After pretending we were firing off cannons at attacking pirates, we wandered down the loooooong hillside to look for a cache that was “supposed” to be there. After fruitlessly searching for some time we wearily climbed the hill to the fort again and caught the next trolley back toward Old San Juan.

We jumped off the trolley near some restaurants and shopping areas and wandered around for a while. We bought some souvenirs, stopped for a free rum drink at Don Q's and another drink at Senor Frogs before returning to the ship around 2. Judy and Alice were already back on board. They'd had problems with their trolley. It had been unable to make it's circle through Old San Juan as, according to some policia who informed their driver, the Governor was in town and the trolley was not allowed on those streets at that time. I have NO idea what that meant, but Judy and Alice had to return to the original trolley stop and grab a fort trolley to at least get an overview of the area. They ended up shopping a bit near the ship. A disappointing day for them, unfortunately.

Back on board Judy and I found an invitation waiting in our cabin to attend the “past guest” party as we'd cruised with Carnival in the past. We attended and had a few freebie drinks, some hors d'orvres and listened to our Cruise Director Trevor thank all of us for choosing Carnival. We then watched a short film on the history of the company that was interesting. I was surprised that there was only a couple hundred attendees. I thought there would be lots more.

At dinner that evening we were visited by our maitre d', 007. Double-O Seven was the name he went by. He was wearing a Rastafarian-style multi-colored knit hat with black dreadlocks cascading over his neck. It was funny as hell as he was a very distinguished-looking Italian gentleman!

I was starting to get a bit jaded from all the rich, fancy food about then. Getting hungry for Mickey D's or our favorite girl Wendy! Aren't we such plebes!

Went to the “Love and Marriage” show that evening. The Assistant Cruise Director John selected 3 couples from the audience to participate. First was an old married couple – 60 years. Next was a couple married around 32 years. The last was a couple married the previous day. The newlyweds were VERY large African-Americans, the male of which was named Spoony Love! Heaven knows if it was a real name, but... maybe? The show was based on the old TV show “The Newlywed Game”. They asked 10 questions to the couples and they compared answers from husband and wife to see how close they were. The old married couple won. The newlyweds looked as if they wouldn't see their 2^nd week anniversary! It was hilarious in a cruel sort of way!

Looking forward to our last port, Grand Turk, tomorrow.

***

Up around 8 on Friday. Went to a high deck after breakfast and watched the ship approach the dock at Grand Turk Island. There was a Holland America Line ship already docked – the Noordam. We left the ship at 11-ish and picked up our pre-rented golf cart to explore the island. We drove around a bit, on the left side, of course, and gradually found our way out to the lighthouse on the northern tip of Grand Turk. Hardly any of the roads are marked, so you're navigating mostly by dead reckoning. Luckily I had a geocache loaded into my GPSr which was close to the lighthouse, so I used it to find my way. I located the cache easily when we arrived and we checked out the beautiful scenery around the lighthouse. Apparently it's a marvelous spot for whale watching during certain months of the year. Their migration route is just offshore.

We then puttered back toward the only town of significance on the 2 mile by 5 mile island, Cockburn Town. We enjoyed seeing the multitudes of donkeys, cattle, dogs and horses that roam freely across the island. In some places you have to drive around them as they stand in the road. We visited the Turks National Museum and learned about a shipwreck found close to the island which they originally thought might be the Pinta, one of Columbus' ships. It turned out not to be but was of the same era.

We lunched near the museum at a tiny eating place, actually just 3 picnic tables under a roof. Had conch fritters, french fries and conch chowder. The fritters were yummy, similar to hush puppies with chunks of conch. The chowder was OK, but had too many carrots in it for my taste. I put on some screamingly potent hot sauce which was available on the picnic table onto my fritters. Soon had sweat streaming from the heat.

We returned the golf cart to the pickup point near the cruise center after putting $20 of gas in it. Gas on this island, if you're curious, was going for $5.98 a gallon. Be thankful for our local prices, folks. We poked around the shops in the cruise center for a short, while then returned to the ship by 4.

Judy and I decided to play hookey at our 2^nd formal night on the ship. Just didn't want to dress up and each rich food again. So she and I ate lightly at the buffet in our shorts and tee-shirts. After a leisurely supper we visited the deck where all the photos taken by the Carnival staff were located and bought a few of us. Afterward we went back to the Amber Palace Showroom to watch the “Living in America” show. Lots of high-energy singing and dancing. Quite good, actually. Hit the casino afterward. Played roulette a bit and made $20 last quite a while. Saw a guy hit a number right next to me. He'd bet $20 on the single number and hit for over $600. Wow! Went to the late comedy show at 11:45 that night and the comedian was quite good.

Tomorrow is our last sea day. We're heading home.

***

Woke up later than usual on Saturday, around 9. Ate a bit lighter at the Red Sail as I seem to have developed a nasty head cold. Can't really taste anything. Quite an affliction on a cruise with their myriad of things to eat. Dammit.

Shopped at the ship's store as the last day of the cruise is always a sale day – two tee-shirts and a Glory magnet. Slipped back to the cabin after that to go over our receipts and fill out the customs declaration and bag tags for tomorrow's debarkation. Judy and I are going to the wristwatch raffle and sale at noon. This is, I guess, a tradition on Carnival ships. They get a lot of wristwatch sets, men's and women's, and raffle off some and put the rest on sale.

Upon our arrival at the store at noon we saw a couple hundred folks milling about and hovering over two long cloth-covered tables. Apparently that was where the soon-to-be-on-sale watches were hiding. We listened to the drawing for the freebie (we did not win – surprise) and then the sale was commenced. The coverings were withdrawn from the tables and the horde descended! The gift sets were sold all week for $39.99. Today they were going for $19.99 and were SUPPOSED to retail for $50 to $100. People were grabbing them up by the 3's and 4's. I couldn't even get close enough to the tables to look at them. We waited for about 10-15 minutes until we could examine some of the ones left. When I looked at them I was not surprised to see some decidedly cheap-looking watches. I'd guess they would wholesale for $9 to $15. Nothing even remotely attractive to my eyes.

Went back to the fish 'n chips area for lunch. They also had running concurrently their chocolate buffet. Mmmm... Looked marvelous! I partook, but had to ask Judy if any of it was good. Drat this stuffed up nose!

Went back to the cabin then to put on long pants and try to warm up a bit. It's a little cool on the open decks and the air conditioner seems to be working overtime. I considered it might be my cold making me chilled, but Judy was chilly also.

I discovered at lunch today that my camera which I had kept strapped onto my belt all week was gone. Uh-oh! It was odd as I had to take my belt off to remove the camera case. We looked ALL over the cabin and had no luck until Judy at last found it. It was sitting next to the... er... toilet. Apparently it had fallen off my belt during one of my... interludes there? Thank goodness. Losing the camera would NOT have been a good thing.

Supper back in the MDR. Last night supper on cruises is always a sad time. The dining room crew always sings the “Leaving on a Fun Ship” song (to the tune “Leaving on a Jet Plane”) and everyone realizes that the cruise is over. We gave hearty handshakes to the male stewards and hugs to our Monica. I was so choked up I could hardly speak. I found out later that Judy was affected the same way. What sentimental fools we are!

Back in the cabin we found that the nightly bed turn-down had been completed and our rum from St. Thomas had been delivered. We finished packing the big suitcases that we would put out in the hallway that night and inserted the rum bottles tightly wrapped with dirty clothes for padding into the center of one. We then crossed our fingers!

Went to the last big show at the Amber Palace. It was the “American Legends” show and starred... us! They had auditioned cruisers all week, hunting for people who wanted to portray famous singers. Tonight they were all costumed up and came out one by one to sing. Some of the people portrayed were: Elvis, Sonny and Cher, Frank Sinatra, Elton John, Brittney Spears, Aretha Franklin and a few others. And they were GOOD! One portrayal was done by the Assistant Cruise Director John and it was SO funny. He was dressed as a woman and... the song and skit was hilarious. This was a fine and fitting finish to the cruise!

Back to the room then to put the big suitcases out and to scour the room for anything we might have missed. Then off to dreamland for our last night in our snug little cabin on the seas.

***

So today is the day we say goodbye to our beautiful ship Glory and all her crew. Always a sad day. But the pull of home was strong so we went forward with half a smile. Up at 6:45, cleaned up and off to the Red Sail for breakfast. For the last time. Ate lightly and noticed out the window that it was raining heavily in Miami. We vacated our room at 8:30 to give our steward time to freshen the room for the next cruiser later that day and went to the Amber Palace to wait for our group number to be called for debark. We were called around 11 and we exited the ship on the same gangway we'd entered a week ago. (Has it been THAT long ago?) Customs was surprisingly swift – barely a glance at our passports and customs declarations – and we were soon grabbing our bags and slipping out the terminal's front door and getting picked up by our service to take us to Ft. Lauderdale airport. After a quick drive in the rain we arrived at the airport, checked in and received our boarding passes. Again we passed through the miserable TSA security process and sat down at a Chili's II for lunch. Then we waited for our 3:15 flight to Atlanta. We left the rain somewhere between Ft. Lauderdale and Atlanta – it was sunny and warm there. Another long wait until our 9:30 flight to Columbus. After landing there and getting our baggage (it all made the flights with us) we were in the car and heading home by 11:30 – a long travel day for us tired sailors. A smooth drive home in the moonlight and soon we were snuggled in our own familiar bed. The cruise was over.

***

Before closing this recounting of the trip I thought some post-cruise thoughts might be of interest.

It's amazing how parochial I've become, how accustomed I've become to the little world I inhabit. Being on the ship with a large group of people from vastly different backgrounds can make you understand how wide the world actually is and how differently other people see things. English was not the majority language on board That would probably be Spanish, but there were lots of other ones that were quite foreign to my Anglicized ears. And not just from the crew, which was to be expected. Lots of my fellow passengers were not primarily English speakers.

People's bodies on the cruise ran from the obviously obese to the impossibly svelte. Most of us inhabited the middle ground. I found my eyes constantly pulled toward my shipmates with the fantastic shapes as my female companions eyes were probably also drawn to the handsome officers of the cruise line. This “perk” is one of the unadvertised benefits of cruising.

Formal nights demonstrated that we ALL can clean up and look ravishing when the opportunity arises. I was fascinated by how GOOD almost everyone looked on those nights.

It was fun watching the growth of camaraderie amongst all the cruisers as the week progressed. We were a small, like-minded city for our week bouncing around in the Caribbean and the sense of family began to pervade the group as the time progressed. There was almost ALWAYS a smile or a friendly word between cruisers when they met during the course of the day. Even from the person who you might have walked across the street to avoid the week before.

It seems to be a consensus among fellow cruisers I've talked to that one week's cruising is about the ideal. Most of those I've chatted with are more than ready to return home after a week. I believe a 4-nighter is a little short and more than 7 days might be pushing the envelope. Of course this is just the opinion of myself and a few others I've talked to.

Too much of anything is always too much. Food. Sun. Crowds. Liquor. We all have our saturation points or the place where the next bite of rich food isn't pleasant any more, the next drink isn't as satisfying, the next line you have to stand in not at all acceptable. For some it comes early, for others, later. But it always seems to eventually come.

I, and my wife, adore all the pampering we get on a cruise. It will be surely missed. Having your bed made daily, having it turned down nightly, having a thousand dedicated folks whose entire reason for being on the ship is to provide for your comfort and ease and satisfaction is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Stuff costs more at sea. Always. If you didn't bring it with you, be prepared to shell out for it.

For every winner in the casino, for every bingo winner and cruise winner and whatever, there are LOTS of us others that support them. And support the crew. And provide a fine living for the executives of the cruise line. The cruise industry is NOT a charity!

A lot of the folks you bump into on the cruise ship are richer than you. Some are a LOT richer. They can afford the big bets in the casino and all the Carnival-sponsored island excursions. Easily. Some others you see aboard save a long, long time to afford the cruise they are on. There is NO average cruiser.

It'll take you a while to get your sea legs. About as soon as you accomplish this, your cruise will be over and you'll have to acquire your land legs again. This is another law of the cruise. As a side note, I wonder how long it will take before I can eat a meal and not expect the room to slowly tilt from side to side. Or when will I adjust to a bed that doesn't gently rock me to sleep every night.

Cruising isn't for everyone. But you owe it to yourself to give it a try before dismissing the idea. If it turns out to not be for you, then you learned something. But if you like it? Then you've probably gained a life-long obsession for the cruising life. I know Judy and I have.