Kitchen Table Tales - Mother and Daddy on the cruise

There are three stories about Mother and Daddy on a cruise.

The first two involve John and Barbara Stuart, who, as UT representatives, were in charge of this trip of Flying Longhorns. I think this cruise went to Greece and the Deans and the Stuarts had many adventures, including mule rides up and down a mountain and also finding a cab driver with no English who took about two hours to find their hotel in the middle of the night.

On this particular cruise, there was a dress-up night and Daddy took his WWII Naval uniform, which, even though had had a big placket added to the rear of the pants, was still too tight. After the party, they decided to throw the pants overboard. They conducted a Viking funeral, complete with flowers and a trumpet solo.

At the end of the cruise, John heard a commotion in the Purser's office and went to see what was wrong. He found Daddy and another man arguing over their bar bills. Apparently Daddy was offended that the other fellow had a larger bar bill. "I ALWAYS have the biggest bar bill!" he asserted.

The other cruise story took place in 1976 - which was the bicentennial of the U. S. In the celebrations leading up to the country's 200th birthday, Mother and Daddy, with several other couples from Pecos, took lessons in dancing the minuet. After learning the steps and acquiring costumes, they performed a couple of times for school children and at the country club. Later, on the cruise, they were demonstrating the dance on a slick marble floor and Mother slipped and fell. She broke her coccyx (tailbone). It was a painful injury and she had to sit on a "doughnut" pillow for several months after.