Garnet   Garnet I increase my German vocabulary every day, which is one advantage of travelling in general, to say nothing of having an alternate German atmosphere on the Caronia. Most of the names of the stones in German that we bought I had heard or seen while shopping: Amethyst, blauer Topaz, Peridot, Zitrin. But I hadn't heard garnet, and was curious. After describing to someone what I meant, I found out it was Granat. The GAR- versus GRA- variation I found interesting. Then I got more curious. If you look for the sequence GRA- in English as well, could the name garnet be connected with a pomogranate? Pomme is French for apple. Could a pomogranate be an "apple of garnets", or "garnet apple"? A little more asking around led to the information that a pomogranate in German is a Granatapfel, which is just that, a garnet apple.

I also suspect that a (hand) grenade is named after a pomogranate, although it isn't really the same shape. Do you suppose grenadine (in a Shirley Temple) is made from pomogranates? I never thought about it. And where could the Spanish city of Granada get its name? Could it be garnets or pomogranates? From all this data, it can be assumed that GRA- is original (even in English pomogranate), and that garnet must be showing a change to GAR-. The assumption could be made that originally the stone was called in English a "granet", rhyming with granite, but that is speculation.

Physical Therapy   We have a new person at our dinner table, Elizabeth. A few of us were chatting yesterday after dinner, and she's a physical therapist from Salt Lake City. Right at the table she started working with Bev's left arm, which has become a bit stiff. It was formal night, so it was curious to see two ladies in gowns doing arm exercise at the table. She eventually loosened the arm quite a bit. That's how things go. People just like to help. I said I had been using first a splint, then an ace bandage overnight to keep Bev's left thumb from curling up. Elizabeth just suggested rolling a washcloth and letting her hold onto that overnight to keep the entire hand open. It worked well last night.

The Sky   We had some pleasant weather when in the temperate south, but now that we're in the tropics, almost to the equator, the days are devilishly hot, and it's no fun going out on deck. However, this evening at sunset, although a little humid, it was very pleasant to sit out for quite a while. There was a half moon, and then (again, I'm no astronomer), you could very clearly see Venus (the Evening "Star"). Even I could find that. Then the Captain made an announcement that that's just what we were seeing, and also pointed out Saturn. I'd never have found that on my own. It was pleasant as it got dark, sitting back on deck and watching Venus go up---and down---and up---and down against the dark sky. Of course, the illusion was caused by the rocking of the ship.

Devil's Island   We crossed the equator again, and, contrary to the old joke, we didn't feel any bump. This morning we came up to Devil's Island, French Guyana.

French Guyana is the largest overseas department of France. It is 1/6 the size of France. It apparently is one of the most sparseley settled areas on earth. There are three tiny islands just offshore, called the Îles du Salut. Salut means health, but the name is translated Isles of Salvation, since people would flee the diseases on the mainland to come there. Ironically, this is where the penal colony was established for almost a century ending just after WW2.

The main island is Île Royale, and, along with Île St Joseph, is where most of the deteriorating buildings of the penal colony are. Île du Diable (Devil's Island), is actually inaccessable, since the cliffs prevent any landings.

Yesterday they showed the film Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, I think dating from 1973. We never saw it at the time out of lack of interest. We did see it this time, since we were coming to Devil's Island, where the story takes place. I still didn't care for it much, but it gives one the appropriate insights.

The dock at Île Royale is too small for the ship, and we were scheduled to tender out to the dock. However, although today is a beautiful day, sunny but not too hot, the wind was causing huge whitecaps, and once we arrived, the pilot advised that the tenders not be used. Therefore, one had to be satisfied to look at the islands from the ship, and off we sailed. Still, having made the stop, we counted French Guiana as # 95.

Caribbean   After Devil's Island, we stopped in Barbados, where we'd been before. We avoided any standard tours, found a taxi, and negotiated a drive around the island. We enjoyed old St John's church on the Atlantic side, with splendid views of the coast. Our last stop was Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, where we'd also been before. The ship wasn't able to get a docking space, so people were tendered in to town. We had seen what we wanted already, weren't interested in any shopping, and stayed on the ship. When leaving St Thomas, I saw on the posted maps that the deep shipping channel we were to follow went right along the north coast of the Dominican Republic, then turning abruptly north to Florida. I saw that we'd be passing Cabo Francés Viejo (Old French Cape) on the north coast of the DR, which is where Eden Bay Resort is. I had Martyn Moss, the cruise director, check when we'd be passing, which was about 9:45 the next morning. In the morning there was haze, and I could barely spot the mountains in the distance. We were told we were 18 nautical miles off the DR coast. Shortly before Florida, we were told that the round trip out of Fort Lauderdale would end up being 14,201 nautical miles.

Saying Nice Things (Again)   I know I'm overdoing the description of nice things people would say to us, but I have just two more.

There was a craggy-faced gentleman of 94 from Chicago that I'd seen dancing regularly and energetically with his 84-year-old wife. We had never had occasion to speak.

Men in general are not known for expressing emotions, craggy-faced elderly gentlemen in particular. However, one day, Bev and I went up to the rail of the ship to look at the ocean for a few minutes. This gentleman happened to be at the rail as well. He didn't say hello, and didn't turn to me. He just said, while looking out to sea "You treat your Lady very nicely." It was especially poignant considering the source.

We first had gotten to know Jutta (YOOT-a) from Hilden near Düsseldorf on the plane to Antarctica. As a matter of fact, she was the one that had said I should get that German medal. She had been very attentive since. The next-to-the-last night was the Captain's farewell ball (local joke: where was the Captain going?) before dinner. Bev and I were just finishing some champagne and about to go to dinner when Jutta came up to us. She was a bit emotional and her eyes were red. She asked if she could take our picture, which she did. She then leaned over and confided to me (in German) that when she got home and people asked about her trip, aside from the sightseeing, she was going to tell people that the human high point of her trip was meeting the two of us. That was very nice, and I'm really glad she included both of us. I invited her to stop by our table the next night and have some of Bev's birthday cake, and she was delighted.

Birthday   Friday, disembarking day, was Bev's birthday, so we celebrated Thursday evening on the ship and again Saturday evening in Tampa with friends. The dining room staff always decorates the table with three baloons (Jutta brought three more), which I later tied on the back of the wheelchair for the evening, disembarked with, loaded into the back of the rental car, and used again Saturday in Tampa.

I had ordered champagne for our table and two neighboring tables. It wasn't the good stuff, just sparkling wine, but there was something about the brand name that appealed to me: Dom Vincent.

I knew Bev liked tiramisù, since that's what she had asked for at her 60th birthday party in Tampa seven years earlier, so that's what I had ordered.

Jutta came over after dinner with the balloons and a small gift (chocolate bar) and some flowers she'd probably nicked from the vase at her table. There were a couple of other trinket gifts that also came. When I started to help Bev eat her tiramisù, Jutta asked if she could do it, and fed the entire portion to Bev. We had a very pleasant evening.

Andrew Killian   We met two interesting people in the last days of the trip. Andrew Killian was a lecturer from London, I forget which university. His specialty was Shakespeare, and gave a series of lectures, not on dry topics, but on the theater and history of the period. For instance, I learned that there had been no theaters as such since the Greeks. Actors performed at fairs, in patrons' homes, or the like. The acting troupes were named after the patrons, two such troupes being the Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men. It's well known that men played women's rôles, but actually it was boys whose voices were still high-pitched.

When in the Elizabethan period the acting troupes wanted to build theaters, they argued for three years with the City of London, which nevertheless forbade theaters within the city limits. That's why all the theaters were built across the Thames, on the south bank, such as the Globe and the Swan, and that of course is where today's restored Globe is.

I learned two interesting derevations from Andrew. At each entrance to the theater was a man called a boxman with a wooden box with a slot for you to drop your penny's admission in. Once the show started, they went to count and parcel out the money. The place the boxmen went to was, of course, the box office, and we call it that to this day.

The theaters being across the river, there was a problem in informing the public of what was going on. They flew signal flags on the theaters, but they also sent little groups across to London with drummers marching through the streets and announcing the shows. This is the origin of the term "drumming up business".

In one lecture, Andrew had a question about a word, and asked if anyone had an opinion about it to talk to him afterwards. I did, and it was the first of a number of interesting and pleasant discussions.

I want to mention two of the points I made to him, and in each case he hurriedly scribbled down a note to himself about it, which pleased me. Both of these illustrate a need for him to outsource his work in languages other than English, specifically German and French, which I suppose he was doing in talking to me.

He made this point. In Connecticut the river spelled Thames is pronounced as written, THAYMZ. The original river in London is also spelled that way, but has the unusual pronunciation TEMZ. He knew why, and it was interesting. It was originally also pronounced THAYMZ, but when George I came over from Germany to assume the British throne, he who notoriously never learned English to any extent, he--and I quote Andrew--"had difficulty" pronouncing THAYMZ, said TEMZ instead, the court copied his pronunciation, then the people, and it became the standard.

Interesting, probably true, but with a weak spot, which I pointed out to him in one of our discussions. The German name of the river is Themse, pronounced TEMZ-uh. George I wasn't "having difficulty", he was clearly just using the German name, shortened, which Andrew made note of.

Andrew mostly talked of historical matters, but did provide one text to review in a lecture. He used the "This is the winter of our discontent" speech from Richard III. One line ends with the phrase "with wrinkled front", which Andrew said meant "with a wrinkled face". I think many French speakers would see a problem with that statement.

I had never seen the phrase before, but we discussed afterwards that "le front" in French is "the forehead/brow". A wrinkled front would have to mean a wrinkled brow, which would indicate worry, rather than a wrinkled face, which would indicate age. Andrew duly made note.

Finally, the last morning when we were waiting in the Ballroom to disembark, Andrew came up with some additional information of interest. He had been discussing in the Richard III speech how the rhythm of the line could change meaning, and he had an interesting example. In the Gettysburg Address, people always read the line as "government OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people", which takes the people as a given and implies HOW the people govern. He said if you check the rhythm of the whole text (and this had been confirmed by people who actually heard Lincoln give the speech) the way Lincoln said it was "government of the PEOple, by the PEOple, for the PEOple". Reading it this way doesn't take the people as a given and presents the fact that it's the people's government.

John Martin   I'll end with comedy. When I went to Martyn Moss to ask him to see how far off the DR we'd be, he was chatting with a comedian who had just flown in from the UK and gotten on in St Thomas. He'd known John Martin quite well from before, and we all got talking. He was so interesting that we'd all have chats in the evening for the last days of the trip. John gave two performances, and would come up to me to kid around during the show.

As really good a comedian John was, he had a most unusual hobby, which I learned about within minutes of our first conversation. You can't avoid him talking about it. John is fascinated by--General Custer, the Battle of Little Big Horn ("Custer's Last Stand"), and everything connected with it. He manages to work Custer into every conversation. At first it seemed like a peculiar obsession, but after a while I respected him for his knowledge. I would have to say he's a world authority on Custer. He's involved with--maybe in charge of--the Custer Society of Britain, with maybe 75 members. I wouldn’t have imagined such a society existed? He's involved with other groups dealing withthe Little Big Horn area. He's asked Martyn if sometime, in addition to doing comedy shows, he be allowed to give a lecture on Custer.

Having talked to John I now know (do I have a choice?) that Custer's widow's name was Libby, and she lived on East 18th Street in New York. He gave me the house number, but I'm not that much of a fanatic to remember. If you ask him the name of Custer's horse (as a joke), he'll ask you which horse. (He died riding Vic.)

Delmonico's has been a famous restaurant in New York in the Wall Street area for about a century and a half. When John visited there once, he asked about celebrities who had eaten there over the years. They knew of many, but they didn't know--John had to tell them--that Custer and his wife had eaten there. John was shocked--shocked!!

John had been to Little Big Horn in Montana, but he hadn't been to West Point to see Custer's grave. I said I didn't know he was buried there, and John informed me: "Parts of him." I half-jokingly told him I could drive him up the Hudson to West Point some time, and who knows, he may take me up on it. He certainly kept on joking about the possibility.

Back to comedy. Apparently John is in the Guinness Book of Records for having told jokes (at a charitible event) for a record 101 hours and 39 minutes. That's over four days. I teased him about not having made it an even 40 minutes.

During his shows, he had people laughing so hard they were leaning forward or to the side. He is a master of the ad lib. When he asked someone what business he was in, and got the answer "I grow trees", he instantly came back with "Do you have any branches?"

Much of John's humor is what the Brits like to call "saucy". I remember two Clinton jokes.

"You know, the CIA and FBI both investigated that spot on the Lewinsky dress, and do you know what they found? It was soup. Soup!! [Pause] Cock-a-leekie!"

By pure coincidence the following night the dining room actually served cock-a-leekie, and I told John I ordered it in deference to his joke. If you weren't familiar until now with the Scottish soup made with chicken and leeks called cock-a-leekie, then go back and re-read that joke.

And finally:

"They've made an Eleventh Commandment just for Bill Clinton: Thou shalt not put thy rod in thy staff."

John's good.