The Cruise Day 1: Getting There IS Half The Fun

Soooo...It was my wifes 50th birthday coming up. She told me that she had originally scheduled the cruise before her 49th. She is a very thoughtful woman and thought a family cruise or some family vacation would be a good idea. Jon is 23, Pat 20 and Laura 17 and sooner or later they would all be going their separate ways and even if not leaving us and St. Louis would have other obligations with jobs, spouses families. Not only celebrating her birthday but the idea in my mind was a last hurrah for Beckerdom.... this little thing of ours. Perhaps as the late Hunter Thompson said, go out with a bang instead of a whimper. We had last cruised on our ten year anniversary over 17 years ago and my memory of the cruise were hazy and not altogether pleasant as it was not a particularly good time in my life for reasons which I cannot even name. Neither of us had been in a hurry to go back but where were you going to go with your family? An all inclusive really offered little other then togetherness, swimming and drinking and with two arguably under age children seemed like a poor call so, a cruise it was.

We left on a Saturday evening out of the Lou and flew into Miami bringing back some conflicted memories of a few jobs ago when I was a frequent visitor to the town. We got in around 9 and took a cab to the downtown Courtyard Mariott. It was very downtown and although not "sketchy" it did very little to encourage walking around. We took Jon's girlfriend, the lovely Lydia along with us and we decided it was not too late and we took a cab over to Southbeach. South Beach on a Saturday night around midnight is a crowded carnival of humanity and vice. Immediately a good parent wonders "what the hell am I doing here with my children?" Left without a good answer you hop out of the cab and see what is what. We walked to the ocean and Pat ad I walked in. I love the ocean. I love the smell of it and the taste of the salt but other then Pat the rest of the group was not similarly afflicted.

So we headed back to the strip and it is a STRIP. Ocean Blvd. runs along the ocean surprisingly enough and is literally lined with restaurants and clubs and all manner of humanity. Everyone is dressed to party and gays, straights, transgender, anglo, black, latino and everyone within 50 miles who can get there is wandering this strip, eating, drinking and debauching. It is loud and hosts and hostesses at each place are hawking to get you to look at their menu and have a seat. So we waked from the south end to the point where the action petered out and then walked back and found a large booth on the street at the Clevelander. There, we took it all in and there was much to take in. there was a suped up old Impala with a car alarm randomly blaring, there was a parade of people tricked out for the night, classy, slutty, sketchy, beautiful and horrid. Oh the humanity. The food at the Cleavelander was surprisingly good and we had a few beers as we watched a young man on the front porch of the hotel and his...girlfriend?...make out (and I mean make out in the most graphic, private dance, inappropriate way possible) but mainly we just watched people... and marveled at our sheltered (for me blessedly sheltered at this point) little lives.

We were also approached by a nice young African-American gentlemen who complimented on me on my family and struck up the patter of a true hustler. he was a rapper pushing his product with poorly wrapped CD's and although a little intrusive, he explained that he was doing "inspirational rap" and that he was different. I smiled as he told me his girlfriend was writing songs for Taylor Swift and he smiled when I told him that being from St. Louis we were Nelly Loyalists (and obvious lie and overplaying of my hand). I ended the standoff with him by paying him 10 bucks for his CD and he asked me to email him my comments. His name was heat Rock. I would like to say I could recommend him. They also had a cigar roller on the street and I went back and bought some cigars for the trip. They were average with a sweet wrapper but... they gave me something to smoke while on the boat and waiting to get somewhere that I could buy a Cuban (cigar, not an actual person).

I was wrong by the way about this being "how the other half lives". , this is not the other half but the other .0001 percent but God bless them all, they make out world a richer place and while exposing your children to it might not seem smart... it did seem very Becker. We were out till about 2:30 A.M. Too late for a Becker.