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Because you’re young By Tim Cullimore
W
e’ve just moved house, and when unpacking the stuff that had been stored in the attic of our old home for some years I came across a box of old photographs from when I worked on the cruise ships as a dealer all of 35 years ago. I remember well of course the broad outlines of the couple of years I spent working in the Caribbean, Alaska and New England but it was the details that brought me up short. Of course, the face of the hundreds of people I worked with brought back some fantastic memories, but putting names to them all was another matter. How is that I spent some the best nights of my life in the bars of San Juan, Puerto Rico, but cannot remember the faces, never mind the names of some of the people I’m drinking with. But what is remarkable are the stories that came flooding back. When you are for maybe six months living in quite cramped conditions you often hear the same tales over and over again, but somehow they never seemed to become boring. The English shop manager for instance who returned home after one ship-
INFINITY GAMING
board contract to find his parents had moved without telling was on the on the face of it was rather tragic but made us laugh long and hard each time he told it. Or my cabin mate who had gone out partying the night before taking his flight from the U.K. to join the ship in Fort Lauderdale and found on arrival that he had packed his brother’s clothes instead of his own. I found a photo of my attempts to learn water skiing near Acapulco, which reminded me of the sad story of a passenger who was very ill so that ship had docked six hours earlier than planned in Acapulco, and although we were very concerned for the passenger, this gave us the change to get off the ship and hit the clubs for an extra night. I’m afraid the fate of the passenger was soon forgotten. And then the bars we frequented regularly, but on different islands, or even in different countries! But to us it was like going down to our local pub or bar. The fantastic Southport Raw Bar in Fort Lauderdale, or the bar at Lime Tree Beach in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I ask myself; did we ever do any work?
Which brings to my point, that I value very much the day I was given the change to be a dealer. It opened up whole new worlds for me, gave me the chance to travel to places I would never have dreamed of, and introducing ways of life I never thought possible (West Palm Beach and the San Blas Islands in one week? Where else would you get that opportunity).
