Most of us enjoy traveling to new, exciting, and interesting places, whether it is a domestic or an exotic foreign land. Personally, I have been in forty-nine of the fifty states, at least fifteen European, three South American, six Central American, five Asian countries, and, of course, Canada and Mexico. My wife and I have cruised twenty-seven times, including eight times when I lectured on “American Musical Theater.” Those eight cruises cost us $25 per day per person to the lecturers’ agency, and we had all the perks of any other passenger, except we needed a notarized contract that we would not play Bingo–hardly a great sacrifice as neither of us enjoys the game.
On all of our trips we usually experienced the promised goodies, some unexpected not-so-goodies, and sometimes a chuckle, or at least a story to bring home to bore family and friends. What follows are some of the unexpected, but interesting stories.
As a young, single teacher, I became a chaperone for “over-privileged” high school students in a summer program in France. Our group of 180, determined by the size of the chartered aircraft, was housed in the lovely Alpine mountains of Southern France near the site of the 1968 Olympics. The students studied the French language during the week, and we traveled on weekends. One Friday afternoon we bussed to Turin and Milan, Italy. Our dinner in Turin was enjoyable, but afterward I announced: “I did not travel from Long Beach, California to Italy NOT to have spaghetti.”
I gathered a group of seven students and we explored Turin until we found a horseshoe-shaped bar where they served food. None of us spoke Italian, so I told the server that we wanted eight spaghetti dinners, substituting the Southern California Hispanic “ocho” for the Italian “otto, while holding up eight fingers.” The server laughed and, trying to baffle me, asked, “Con carne or no con carne?” My answer was in both Spanish and Italian, “No con carne.” I then asked the kids if anyone wanted a Coke; one did, as did I. “Duos Coca-Cola,” I told him in at best awkward Spanish. In order to confirm the number, I used the baseball signal of the thumb holding down the middle and ring fingers while the index and pinky fingers were held straight up and waved. The two gentlemen on the other side of the horseshoe bar immediately jumped down from their stools and came toward me, ready to fight. Fortunately, the proprietor stopped them saying something to the effect of, “Stupido Americano,” adding something else in fast Italian which had them laughing. It was a few months later that I learned that the American baseball gesture when used in Italy meant “The Horns of the Cuckold” or “Your wife has been sleeping around.” After that I became more sensitive and careful with non-verbal hand gestures.
On Shirley’s and my first trip to England, we flew on a BritAir hotel and theater program. Because of the time change we were up at 4:00AM reading the London Times in order to see for which two shows we would use our vouchers. When we arrived at the ticket agency, the clerk was on the phone with someone who was obviously driving him crazy. His face was red, and he appeared ready to commit mayhem. When he got off the phone, I quietly said, “I hope that wasn’t an American.” He replied that it was a German followed by a terse “What do you want?” I showed him our ranked order list of plays. He immediately softened and asked incredulously, “You know what you want? Great! Let me see what I can do.” He gave us fourth row center seats to “Les Miserables,” our first choice, and first row balcony center seats for Anthony Hopkins in “M Butterfly,” our second. That fell into the category of unexpected “goodies” with even better to follow.
On the way to “Les Miz,” we were about to cross the street to the theater when two motorcycles with flashing lights drove up followed by a large, black Rolls-Royce limousine, then two more motorcycles. The entourage with a man and woman in the back seat stopped right in front of us for a traffic light. To this day I insist that I read Elizabeth’s lips as she said to Phillip, “Oh, look, it’s Shirley and Ed.” So far nobody, however, believes the last part.
On one of our cruises we met a couple from Phoenix and buddied with them for a while. One morning near the end of the cruise the husband announced the following—his words, not mine: “We had such wonderful marital bliss last night.” Today our grandkids would say, “TMI,” too much information. While happy for them, we really felt it was nothing we needed to know. I thought of a few things to say, but bit my tongue. The relationship went downhill from there. When we got home, however, we started getting far-out political emails from them, the last one asking for $10 from us and everyone we knew in order to save “our people from annihilation.” I sent back an email informing them that I needed a new shirt, and if they and ten friends would send $100,000 each, I could get my new shirt. I wonder what ever happened to them.
Finally there was an incident on a ship that peripherally involved Rossmoor. We like to mingle at meals and meet new people. One lunch we sat at a table with three other couples. I asked the inevitable question, “Where are you from?” The first two were from the East coast; then it was our turn. I explained that we lived in the adult (retirement) community of Rossmoor in Walnut Creek, California, about thirty miles east of San Francisco. Then we all turned to the fourth couple. The lady, quite haughtily and dramatically, stated, “Oh, we are from… (dramatic pause followed by slow, measured speech) ‘Al-a-mo!’” Not being content to be put in my peasant place, I giggled, then responded for the Easterners, “That’s a little town just over the hill from us.” Strangely enough we never met the couple from “Al-a-mo!” again either.
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