SAILING AWAY ON GRACE LINE

Grace Line

Paul and I set off on our week-long honeymoon cruise.  We would visit Curacao, Aruba, Haiti, St. Thomas and Caracas, Venezuela.  I had never been to any of these exotic locations and I was pumped! Paul loved the sea and was always happiest when aboard ship. I didn't feel quite well, but tried to ignore it.  However, by the third day I had familiar symptoms and we visited the ship's doctor.

"Well, it certainly sounds as if you have more kidney stones and since we are at sea, there is nothing I can really do," the doctor said, sympathetically. "You will probably need more surgery as soon as you get home." 

Discouraged, Paul and I trudged back to our room.  How would we pay for more surgery?  I had given up my job (and insurance) and Paul had no insurance at the Players.  We both tried to be cheerful but a pall had settled over our honeymoon. Because of feeling ill, I had missed seeing Aruba and Curacao. 

We ate a delicious dinner in the elaborate dining room; we tried to laugh and joke but our stories fell flat.  After dinner we walked on deck and looked at the stars.  I suddenly thought of Paul's mother, Mabel, and her last words to me in private.

"Now, Linda," she said, "Paul's dad and I have been married many many years and during all that time we have never seen each other naked.  I hope that you and Paul can follow this tradition."  I had no words.

But now I repeated Mabel's sage words of advice to my new husband.  He looked at me in the moonlight and said, "I think the ship has already sailed on that one."

We both began to laugh and couldn't stop.

TO BE CONTINUED

A MAGICAL DAY AT THE WORLD'S FAIR

             I don't think there has been another World's Fair since the glorious Fair of 1964.  Remember--at that time DisneyWorld and Universal did not exist.  There was no CGI.   Cell phones, computers, Kindles and all the other electronics we have grown so accustomed to today had not yet been invented.  So what we experienced at the Fair was amazing, unbelievable, fantastic, unheard of.  And even though I had been born in New York, I had lived most of my life in a small Florida beach town.  So what I saw that day impressed me as nothing ever had before.  Paul and I went from one marvel to the next, agog.  We were like children exploring the Circus for the first time, the best circus the world had ever seen!

                           

I had no favorite exhibit; I loved all of them.  But Paul loved It's a Small World After All the best.  He continued to love it for the rest of his life and saw it over and over again when the exhibit came to DisneyWorld.  He liked to think that Small World was the world of the future--a place where all the people in the universe coexisted in peace and harmony, where no one was marginalized.  And we had reason to think it was possible as those years were the beginning of the civil rights movement, the women's movement and the birth of gay rights.

We were naive of course, but I remember that day at the Fair showed us a world of unimagined possibilities.  And just think of what we have now; it's almost beyond belief.  But the ideal of peace and harmony that Paul saw in It's a Small World eludes us still.  We're not even close.

And that breaks my heart.

THE 1964 WORLD'S FAIR IN NEW YORK

Paul had arranged a honeymoon cruise on Grace Line, the company he had once worked for.  He didn't like to fly so we took the train from Sarasota to New York.  In those long ago days the train station was downtown.  When the train roared into the station, we boarded, all set for our honeymoon adventure.  I got off the train in an unknown town and walked up and down the platform trying to get my sleeping leg to wake up.  As I strode along with a broad smile, the heel came off my left shoe and I fell down on the filthy platform (the stains on my homemade going away suit never came out.)  I looked around for my high heel and saw that it had fallen onto the tracks.  I then noticed a huge run in my nylons.  My big smile slowly faded as I limped along in my soiled suit and ruined stockings.  I saw Paul coming toward me with two cups of coffee and a stunned expression.  His pretty young bride looked like a homeless woman.  Paul helped me back onto the train (I had twisted my ankle) and when I was safely seated he handed me a cup of coffee and told me to be careful as it was very hot.  Exhausted from the wedding, I fell asleep within five minutes and the hot coffee poured into my lap.  I screamed so loud the porter came.  Chaos reigned.  Passengers handed me napkins, paper towels, hankies-- anything to stem the tide of coffee which was now dribbling down my legs onto the floor.

We arrived in New York many, many, many hours later.  Paul looked fresh as a daisy.  I, on the other hand, had wild hair, a filthy suit, a broken shoe, ruined stockings, a dirty face and a look of profound shock.  Paul's mother was speechless.  My new husband tried to make the best of it.  He brought forth a big, phony smile
and said, "We're all ready for the 1964 World's Fair!"

To Be Continued