My traveling life with my wife, Betsy, didn’t begin until we had been married 18 years. Prior to that we had not gone anywhere outside the country together.
Then, finally, in 1991, we decided we would take a cruise. We chose a Royal Caribbean ship, a brand new one called Monarch of the Seas, one of the largest cruise ships of its day although it wouldn’t be much more than a glorified lifeboat compared to today’s behemoths.
Beforehand, we had the usual concerns about seasickness, or perhaps boredom. Luckily, the ship was steady in a storm, and we found plenty to do during onshore expeditions, while on board, we did a lot of eating.
What I should have been cautious about was the way dinner was conducted aboard ships in those days.
Back then, there were two “formal” nights on our seven-night trip to the Caribbean, and many folks showed up dressed to the nines. Some of the ladies came to dinner in long ballgowns, which to my thinking was a teensy bit over-the-top. Seeing the lengths to which especially the women would go to look fancy, Betsy was appalled that we had only brought our Sunday-go-to-meeting duds. My Kuppenheimer suit from the factory store out on the highway hardly matched up with some of the guys’ slick and super-fancy bespoke outfits.
In fact, as soon as the ship pulled into Saint Maarten the next day, Betsy dragged me all over the island trying to find a dress that was half as fancy as what some of the ladies wore. She found something that had little beads all over the front, the best she could manage.
But then, when we finished the trip and decided we liked cruising enough to do it again and again and again, she went and found herself something that would dazzle from every angle. The result was a dress with spangles all over the front and back, something that veritably shone in the dark.
All of which was okay with me. The rub came when she insisted that the two of us go around to the men’s stores in town to nab an “appropriate” suit of clothing for moi, something that would compete with the guys at dinner. And by golly, after much searching, we found just the thing. It was a lightweight wool suit, black and double-breasted, made in Italy by such discerning tailors. It was just the tiniest bit large for me, but the store’s tailor fixed that. Our salesman was an older fellow, a down-home Southern gentleman who bragged at length about the “Eyetalian” number I was purchasing.
And as it turned out, over the next twenty-five or more years, the fact that it started out a bit on the large size was fine, because I grew into it. I put on a little weight, then a bit more, and that stylish garment was let out and then let out again.
Anyway, that awesome black thing went with me on cruise after cruise over the years. What finally stopped it, stopped me from taking it with me on our twice a year cruise trips were two things: One, cruise clothing styles became much more informal as the years went on. Many cruise lines today have unloaded the formal nights altogether, or else they have watered it down so that you no longer must wear an actual suit. A sports jacket will do, with or without a tie. The ladies are
definitely not expected to show up for formal nights in a long gown anymore – a simple cocktail dress suffices.
Betsy went from black with spangles to slick green numbers that picked up the colors in the lighting very nicely. Then she went to dresses slit up the side to the thigh! Anything to Shine Baby, Shine!
The other thing we always did on “formal nights” was to have a picture taken of us by the ship’s photographers. They were usually stationed just outside the dining room so that we couldn’t miss them when we waddled out, overloaded on crème brulee.
The result is that we have a lot of pictures of the two of us just having finished a ship’s feast of crab or lobster, looking literally fat and happy. And my fine, expensive Eyetalian double breasted number came through nobly. The problem is, if you look back at our cruise pictures through the years, they show the suit stood the test of time year after year, whereas I am slowly losing my hair as it turns white, slowly gaining weight, getting older and older. I have never worn another suit on one of those ships, just the Eyetalian one. It totally showed me up. It outshined me.
Frederick Spencer is the author of Coming Alive: My First Fourteen Years in Savannah.
