THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 18, 1995 TAG: 9501160095
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: LETTERS FROM HOME
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Dear B.G.,
This week, its half over. You and I aren't day counters during cruise - some spouses here can tell you every morning how many more days there are to go before the ship pulls in - but halfway has always been good enough for us.
Even though it wasn't what most would call a dream vacation, I wouldn't have traded our Christmas with you in France for anything. In the airport on the way home, one young wife told me she and her husband had gone on a whirlwind, 7-day car tour of southern Europe. Two nights in Cannes, a couple in Paris, stops in Garmisch and Lucerne, next Milan, then he got back on the ship and she flew home. Romantic.
For us, having a 2-year-old along this time made it. . . priceless. So she hated French milk, got the flu, threw up Christmas Eve and you and I changed 20 diapers in three hours the day before we left, when her digestive system just simply said, nope, folks, the kid and I want to go home.
There will always be the memory of her on a mechanical pony ride outside of the pastry shop where we bought sweets daily, sometimes twice. That seahorse - a strangely artificial shade of blue - made us laugh as you and I realized it was playing ``Home On the Range.''
During the munchkin's naps, we watched French TV - hooted over ``E.T.'' in Italian, listened to Eddie Murphy's dubbed-in German in ``Trading Places'' and saw ``It's a Wonderful Life'' with French subtitles on Christmas.
We puzzled over the hand-lettered note stuck in one lingerie store window that said, ``American Boys - There is no sex shop here.'' I'm still convinced that if you had really wanted to, you could have told me what the guys might have been looking for.
If we'd stayed home I would never have shopped for baguettes for lunch or tucked the long, fresh loaves of bread under my arm for the walk back to the hotel. We wouldn't have smelled the exotic scents that drifted out into the cool winter air from the flower shops on every corner.
I wouldn't have seen irises in bloom in December, or hundreds of fuchsia-colored cyclamen planted in roadside beds. You wouldn't have wandered into a great restaurant - the one that played Bee Gees songs - and ordered calf liver by accident and in truly bad French, and lived to tell about it.
I still wonder why some guys from the ship feel they have to get what we called ``knee-walking drunk'' in college every time they leave the ship. I saw a few ugly Americans in action and was embarrassed. Maybe they'd been to the brasserie across the street from the train station.
If they needed it, I hope they took advantage of the end of the scribbled offer in the bar window there that said, ``U.S. Sailors, buy a drink and get a condom free - no kidding!'' Remember? I have to say, I never saw any of your female shipmates walking the streets three sheets to the wind. Wonder what that means.
We got home in one piece even though your daughter slept only one hour the entire way back. Since then we've finished up one case of the flu, are getting over a nasty cold and clearing up our first ear infection - a landmark you can be glad you missed.
There's a guy flying out for duty on the ship - he left early this week with hand-carried mail from a bunch of us back home. I know it'll be nice for you to read something less than 14 days old. Return the favor if you can.
Two days after I got back here Dec. 27, there came a letter from you dated Dec. 2. Makes you wonder if they're strapping the mail to the backs of dolphins.
We miss you. I've told the baby Daddy's boat will come back when the flowers bloom. Ever since we've come home she's been carrying a framed picture of you around the house. Today I found it sitting beside her on the sofa. Both of you were watching ``Sesame Street.''
Love, Quiche
P.S. The French doors still leak. by CNB