Cruise Ship Romance

Sometimes my job has extra perks.

No, I'm not talking about prime seats to the live broadcast of Prairie Home Companion at Ravinia Festival last weekend (though that was pretty cool). Nor am I talking about the gourmet food I get to eat (because some of it, to be honest, is not so tasty--though most of it is).

I'm talking about the back stories. The ones that don't make it into the newspaper. For example, last week I interviewed Fred and Sheryl. Fred and Sheryl have been married for 44 years. They have two sons, four grandchildren and live in a lovely neighborhood with flowing ponds, rosebushes and resident swans.

I interviewed Fred and Sheryl for a health story. But as Fred was in the other room with the photographer, Sheryl and I started talking about how the two of them met. Here's the story, as best as I remember it (a journalist's disclaimer: there may be errors and the quotes are not word for word):

It was the early 1960s. Sheryl, who grew up in Brooklyn, had just graduated from college with a degree in teaching. Her friends had started their new jobs, but since Sheryl's job didn't started until the fall, she was at loose ends. She decided to take a summer vacation before entering the adult world.

"At first I thought I'd go up to the Catskills," Sheryl said. "But my friend, a travel agent, told me that would be no fun by myself because everyone would be off playing tennis and golf. So he suggested I take a cruise down to Nassau."

Cruises in those days, Sheryl explained, weren't like they are today--floating resorts with stops in numerous ports of call.

"It was a weeklong cruise but all we did was sail down for three days, spend one day in port, and sail back for three days. And we didn't have all of those things to do on the boat that you do nowadays, either."

Sheryl's friend told her she wasn't likely to meet many other young people on this cruise, but she thought she'd have a nice time anyway, so she booked it. As she was boarding, a young man held the door for her.

"I didn't even look at him because I thought he was so young," Sheryl said. "He looked like he was about 18 or something."

However, that young man was three years older than her. Fred had taken the cruise with a buddy of his. Unfortunately, as soon as they got underway, the buddy promptly got seasick. So seasick that he spent the first few days below.

In fact, the weather was bad, and almost the entire passenger list was seasick. Sheryl soon met another young man, one who had been drafted and was about to go overseas, and since neither of them were ill, they walked around the deck chatting. Fred wasn't sick, either, and he was lounging dolefully on his deck chair when Sheryl and her escort walked by.

"I'll never forget what he said," Sheryl remembered. "He said, 'What? More humans?'"

"Well, I hadn't seen anyone else for so long," Fred explained. Fred started walking on the other side of Sheryl and, before long, the other guy (whose name Sheryl can't even remember now) was out of the picture.

Fred booked a deck chair for Sheryl right next to his. It soon developed that there were about 20 young people on board and they quickly became the social center of the ship. On their one day in Nassau they all bought drums and maraccas, Sheryl, said, and came back on board and started their own little band.

When the ship pulled back into New York City on a Saturday morning, Fred asked Sheryl for her number and said he'd call her. He even suggested that they could get together that evening, though he lived in Queens and she in Brooklyn.

"I went home and sat by the telephone," Sheryl said. "But do you know what? He didn't call. At 2 p.m. I started to get a little nervous. By 7 I was crying and telling my father, 'I should have known it was just a shipboard romance."

At 9 that night, Fred finally called.

"I fell asleep," Fred said. "I slept right through the day."

After he explained, Sheryl forgave him. They went out for the first time the following evening, and the rest is history.