6. Some Surprises at the Dinner Table. Coincidences

Dear friends,

We were ten at table together. The two deck high formal dining room sparkledand glowed with its crimson carpet, sparkling flower lamps all over the highceiling, shining brass, white table linens, flowers and crystal, formally attired staff and long, curving red-carpeted staircase between the two levels.

Our assigned table was for early seating, lower level, at table 160 at 6 PM.

Margaret lamented the fact that we were ten and not only eight, as she hadrequested, and I said, to comfort her, "Never mind, there's probably going tobe somebody here that we're meant to meet." Afterwards I felt a little

prescient with that remark!

When everyone had arrived and we were all seated we began to get to know each other. Margaret and Maurice were already known to Ben and I from a previous

ship when we shared a table, and they have visited us at our home twice in the two years since. The others were an aristocratic looking old lady with a handsome high cheeked carved face and dark greying hair; she was from Maine.

Her son was from California. One of his friends with them was also from California. This friend used a cane and looked like a naval officer who had been wounded in the leg. That makes seven of us. So there were three more. Those three were all Chinese ladies. The eldest was still in mourning

for her husband, and since she had very short hair Ben and I thought she was a slightly built, gentle looking man. There were two much younger ladies, one withshort dark hair and a pleasant round face, and the other with long dark hair and an especially pretty face with lovely eyes. This one spoke good English. Theother two spoke very little.

It developed that the old lady's name was Bertha. The next day was to be her 85th birthday, and her son had brought her on the cruise as a gift. Her home overlooks Chesapeake Bay, a very famous bay in Maine. We never did get to know or feel anything much about her son Dennis. He said little and made very little impression. His friend Tom was going to run for governor of California, until Arnold Schwarzeneger stepped into the race. Then Tom dropped out. This indicates that he has standing in his state, and a serious interest in politics; as we didn

't discuss politics at any time at table I don't know anything more about that side of him. He was an interesting man. As I said, he looked like a naval officer. He had been manager of a large Costco store in California, and ruined his back while doing something to help someone there with a heavily loaded piece of equipment. He gave it a push. It didn't move. He heard his back pop. And that

was it. He has had three operations without success so still his left leg and foot are without any feeling, and can collapse on occasion. He used to be very active in sports and much regreted his disability, but he has a firmness of character about him that probably increased as he contended with the injury.

He has old family lineage in the USA. His people arrived in 1634, and so beat mine by only one year. (We counted this as the first coincidence at table.) His

ancestor was Governor Bradford of the Virginia Colony. He also descends from the line and bears the surname of the second wife of famous U.S. President Woodrow

Wilson. When President Wilson was very ill, during that time she practically ran the country in his place. This ancestry certainly would help him in American

politics. It's also another little coincidence because my grandmother was 6th cousin to President Teddy Roosevelt of the USA who like me, had lung problems from

childhood and overcame them.

It turned out that the prettiest of the Chinese ladies has been a Baha'i for five years. (I count this the second coincidence. Particularly as I have so many

dear Chinese friends here on the forum. And as there are about 6 - 7 million Baha'is in the whole world, so to find three on one ship is a lot!) She came from

Shanghai. So, to our surprise, we were three Baha'is at table. Her name is Lynn

, which happens to be the second name of my dear eldest daughter.

Lynn's mother will winter in a warm part of China. Her mother smiled, but said

very little, as she doesn't speak English. Her friend has only a little English

, was very pleasant and managed to talk with me a little bit, but not

generally at table. I was sorry to hear from Lynn that her friend has cancer.

Lynn brought her on the trip as a treat and distraction, because she would learn the level of her cancer status upon her return. Yesterday Lynn called me and said that the news for her friend wasn't good. It seems to be in her bones. What a burden to carry! Poor darling. Now her difficult treatment begins. I hope

it is successful.

We became aware that there were quite a few coincidences at our table. The ones

I have already mentioned above were not the only ones.

Tom related how he went to a new specialist one day, and the physician's secretary said "I see you are slated for surgery in three weeks." Tom had never been there before and wasn't slated for surgery. It developed that they had a patient

with the exact first name, middle name and last name as Tom's. The other patient also was born in the same month and number day of the month as Tom. Only the

year was different. He was five years younger. The man's family became interested, and now they are doing genealogical research to see if they are related.

Margaret said that their physician in Vancouver, a woman, has the exact same family name as Tom and that other surgery patient. Tom's last name isn't a usual one so this was quite a coincidence.

There were other unusual coincidences on the trip. I'll tell you about them

later.

I hope some people are finding these trip posts interesting. No one has replied

to any of the previous five, so it's hard to tell. I feel as though I'm writing into a vaccuum. If you want to hear more, this is not the way to encourage me

. ;->

By the way, I have used semi-colons twice in this post. They are used when two

complete clauses that could stand alone as sentences are closely linked. So instead of making them each into a sentence with a capital letter to begin the second one and period after each, a semi-colon is used, and the first letter after the semi-colon is not capitalized. The use of semi-colons is considered a little

more esoteric. Journalists don't use them. Writers of books often use them.

You can decide for yourself whether you want two short sentences. Or if you prefer to have a longer sentence with the two parts able to stand alone but closely

related to each other and a semi-colon used instead.

With warm good wishes for you all, Mary