September 2025 – Dan & More

Cruzin’: Day Two

This post is part of a series. To catch up, go read Cruzin’.

Day two and we are at sea, off the cost of Mexico. Sachie and I wake before dawn, watch a Caribbean sunrise before the worst of the heat and humidity sets in.

I’m still foggy, vulnerable, when there’s a knock on the door. Could it be? Was this it? We lock eyes and I see my own hopes and fears written on Sachie’s face. Even far from sight of land, they know we are here, they know our cabin. They have come.

Cruzin’

Dan and Sachie have been Cruising. No, it’s not like in the Al Pacino film from 1980, quite the opposite. While Al descended into a sleazy world of leather and gay sex, Sachie and I ascended to the heights of luxury and first-class travel. That is, Sachie scored a fam trip on a boat.

Not just any boat, it’s classy Celebrity Cruises Celebrity Beyond and apparently it’s quite a score. Not your usual family-friendly booze-and-buffet cruise that has you packed into tiny airless staterooms but something closer to the golden age of sea travel, 1977’s The Love Boat.

But first! A long and arduous flight across the Pacific.

Me taking a photo of myself in the aircraft bathroom

More Champagne Comedy

Quit that racket kids. No, turn it off and come over here. We’re supposed to be remembering old Stan today, it’s his big day and tomorrow there’ll be plenty of time for Tick-Tockin’, Row-box or whatever foolishness. Come over here and I’ll tell you a story. No, over here. In a circle.

You see that box over there, no the big one. There. Quit it Sally, I don’t have time for shenanigans. Stanley’s in there, his is body anyway. Yes, really. I thought that’d make you clam-up.

Now I seem pretty old to you and I am. I’ve seen 52 summers and am proper old. But when I was your age, anybody over 16 was a grown-up and that’s how I knew Stan. Stanley was my oldest brother and on the day I was bawlin’ while mother dropped me off for my first day of school he was already put out out to work.

What? I guess he was (one, two three four…ten, twelve) about 14. Yes Sally, that’s too young to work in a factory these days but that’s how it was back then. Pappy ran off and left our mother with five boys to feed and Stanley quit school to keep the rent paid and his brothers fed. Fed most of the time.