Reminds me of the Scripture in John 21:18 that says, “Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”
Ouch!
So, I decided to share some more of Mom’s musings today. First of all, I have to say that today’s addition was written in Mom’s handwriting on the back of an “Elfstrand blog” by Lara, talking about how Timmy had just hit a button on a developmental toy without assistance. Brought tears to my eyes. Hindsight, you know …
In August of 1970, my husband came home from work and told the family we were not flying home to America [from Japan], but we were going on a cruise ship, the President Cleveland, from Yokohama.
We were all excited, only it wasn’t as thrilling as we had imagined.
Our cabin had 2 sets of bunk beds with a dresser in between. Our 3-year-old [Ricky] and our 10-year-old [Diane] were in our cabin. [Rhonda’s note: again, I think Mom is remembering incorrectly. I believe that Diane would have been nearly 13 during this trip, as I was almost 16.] The two teenagers were in with other teens. I barely saw them, except at mealtime. All families ate at 5 PM. The rest of the people ate at 8 PM in fancy clothes.
Children were not allowed on the right hand side of the ship so paying passengers would not be disturbed. There were lots of things for the children to do, which was nice.
This cruise lasted 14 days. In that whole time we only saw one other ship. The Pacific Ocean is a BIG ocean.
We spent one day in Honolulu, seeing the dolphin show and the Arizona, which was sunk during Pearl Harbor.
We were happy to dock at San Francisco and meet up with our car. The voyage was enjoyable, but not very romantic.
Rhonda’s memory of this trip: I remember popping in and out of Mom and Dad’s cabin just to see what it looked like. We teens were bunking with other teens … probably not a real wise idea. Anyway, we had an excellent time exploring, eating saltines and butter on bad-tummy days, and utilizing the teen club on board. The day trip in Hawaii was beautiful, and to date has been the only time I’ve been there! Dad was the chaplain on board this ship; on the Sundays we traveled, he gave the sermons. We crossed the International Date Line and had two Mondays. So, on paper, it looked like a 13-day cruise, but was indeed 14 days.
