Month: August 2017

Storm at Sea

Our cruise ship was on the outer edge of a hurricane and, I admit, I was nervous.

When it was built, in 2006, the 154,407-ton Freedom of the Seas was the largest cruise ship in the world. But it was rocking and rolling that night like a big yacht. Lounge chairs had been tied down and passengers were not allowed on the decks outside, to keep us away from the railings.

Freedom of the Seas
Freedom of the Seas

I had served in the U.S. Navy, on a much smaller ship, a heavy cruiser, in a much bigger storm [Typhoon Nancy, September 1961], but I felt a lot safer then. My ship, USS Los Angeles, could be buttoned up, top to bottom, each small compartment sealed off from the others.

A cruise ship is nothing like a warship.

This is "Main Street" on Freedom of the Seas
This is “Main Street” on Freedom of the Seas

According to Royal Caribbean International, Freedom of the Seas can accommodate 3,634 passengers  and 1,300 crew on a total of 18 decks. It has a casino, auditoriums, an ice skating rink, a two-story dining room and unobstructed passageways that looked like they were as long as a city block.  Longer, maybe. Freedom of the Seas is 1,112 feet in length and the passageways down each side go on and on.

If that ship, any cruise ship for that matter, starts coming apart it’s going to sink like a stone.

OK, so really, how rough was it?

It was our last night at sea and, as directed, we had packed our suitcases and set them in the passageway outside our stateroom, so they could be transferred to shore first thing in the morning.

Donna and I were awakened in the night by a persistent noise –the ship was rolling side to side and the empty clothes hangers in our closet were sliding back and forth, back and forth.

NOTE: So how was the cruise?  It didn’t end well, thanks to bad weather, but the rest was terrific.

Coming Monday: Hard Times

Not Even A Drop

My grandfather, Paul Jones Stith, was 48 years old when he went to his bedroom, alone, and shot himself in the heart. He was born before the Civil War, on Jan. 25, 1858, and died shortly before noon on a Friday, April 13, 1906.

Paul was a “mining expert,”  according to The Birmingham Age-Herald, which published a front-page story the next day explaining why he killed himself.  The newspaper said he was despondent over his inability to obtain a right of way for mines owned by Stith Coal and Iron Co., of which he was president, to a railroad siding he had to have to ship coal.

Paul Jones Stith
Paul Jones Stith, 1858-1906

My father, who was 10 years old, revered his father — he never told me about the suicide.

Dad did tell me that Paul Jones Stith was an alcoholic, the fall-down-drunk-in-the-gutter kind.  On the nights he didn’t come home his wife, Annie Belle Stein Stith, would send men out looking for him, asking them to check the jail, the hospital – and the gutters of nearby streets.

Then, one fine day, Paul stopped drinking. Just like that, according to Dad. Paul made up his mind, told Annie Belle he had decided not to drink any more, and then he didn’t, according to my father.

Dad said after his father quit drinking he went on a U.S. government-sponsored expedition to Alaska to assess minerals there. Paul Jones Stith, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, was an engineer.

Dad said one of the men on that expedition told him it was bitterly cold most of the time and, at night, the men would gather around a fire in one of their cabins and drink. Dad said he was told that his father would take shot glass of whiskey, hold it under his nose, and smell it. And then put it down without drinking a drop.

I heard my father tell that story several times. It was the only time I ever saw him tear up.

Coming Friday: Storm At Sea