What some might call the ideal retirement others can only imagine the horrors of a perpetual buffet line.

A startup company in New York, Storylines, is selling cabins on a 584-foot luxury cruise ship to retirees who want to ply the oceans. There are only 302 cabins so you’ll have to act fast. Not.

For someone like me who considers being trapped on a cruise ship to be a complete and total nightmare, this all seems like a terrible idea. But I have no doubt it will be a success.

Cruise ship condominium owners may rent out their cabins much like the Airbnb model in order to defray monthly fees that range from $4,770 to $9,600. Yes, you read that right. The condo cabins start at $225,000 for purchase and the monthly fees are on top of that initial purchase price. One can only imagine that it’s the cost of 24 hour buffet service that’s pushing the monthly fees into stratospheric levels. Storylines officials say that the fees cover alcohol, housekeeping and other amenities.

Hopefully the “other amenities” include a ship’s doctor and medical staff. Somehow I can’t get the mental picture of a floating germ factory out of my head. It seems like at least once or twice a year there’s a cruise ship health disaster in the news. You know, the ones where the ship has to return to port after some sort of virus infects more than half the passengers who can only projectile vomit over the railing until the ship docks. Well who wouldn’t want to pay nine grand a month for a shot at that scenario.

Baby boomers have a multitude of options for how to occupy themselves in retirement and while cruising is very popular (27 million international passengers are projected for 2018), not everyone has the stomach for it. Literally.

Oh, and one more thing. Your ownership is actually a lease that is tied to the “seaworthy life of the vessel.” If the ship runs aground, so does your investment. No amount of life jackets will save you from drowning in debt if that happens. On the bright side, maybe the buffet will continue service.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

T R A V E L  In eastern Canada, southwest winds coming up the Gulf of St. Lawrence are funneled into the Strait of Belle Isle by the terrain of Labrador and Newfoundland. There they meet the Arctic-spawned winds riding south on the back of the Labrador Current, the engine that freezes the strait each winter. Strong tidal currents, gale-force winds, fog, and seabed-scouring icebergs in varying seasonal combinations produce constant hazardous conditions in the strait. Even on the most beautiful summer day a storm can howl up in minutes.

One drizzly afternoon at the little harbor of Pigeon Cove on the Newfoundland side of the strait, I stopped to talk with a man who was walking the shore. He told me he was a deep sea diver who lived near St. John’s, and was laying cable across the strait to southern Labrador. Choppy seas had given him the day off, though he was wetter now than in his undersea work. He said it was a great day for spotting birds, and pointed out several species – all that could be seen – by name. He was also interested in the shore itself, and knew the rocks were limestone with unusual plants. He was going to walk as much of the shore’s ledges and gravels as the rainy day allowed.

As we talked, it occurred to me that he must have had one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, his current workplace the cold and turbulent waters of the strait. But he said he loved his work. Obviously having a great interest in the planet, he seemed to be living in, or off of, the interplay of enthusiasm and risk. He was more observant than most of us, with heightened awareness a normal state of mind, and a necessity for his occupation. He might have been an explorer of frontiers in an earlier century.

Were I a young man, I might have been intimidated by his extraordinary yet casual competence. But now I am old enough, and content enough, to admire his larger life. I share his enthusiasm, even a bit of the risk, but not at that depth.

Richard LeBlond lives in Richlands, North Carolina.

Utah Division

after the cloudburst
buzzard spreads his wings
for Drying & orders coffee–
could I actually get used to
being called “hon”?

Reinvented

in mountain time
I talk more
with strangers and have
to pee less

Click

in this forgotten canyon
lamped by moonglow
Why did I just lock the cabin?

Investor

A short swift fall
into bankruptcy shall
not be my fate—
I squat to collect
a dark brown feather

Directions

enough aspen
chic already
let’s drive
back to
green river
and buy
more melons

Paul Hadella is from Talent, Oregon and he and his wife recently celebrated retirement with a road trip that inspired these poems.

P O E M   Eleven years old, lost in Prospect Park
with my friend Alan Weberman, a beatnik
who doesn’t play stickball, stoopball, or shoot
water pistols but wears a French beret, black
turtleneck sweaters and bangs the bongos.

We’re trying to find a way out of a
585-acre urban wilderness in the
heart of deepest Brooklyn with
no maps, canteens, compass,
food or shining stars to guide us.

We’re far from Sol’s candy store
with its vanilla egg creams, chocolate
Clark Bars, Drake’s pound cakes,
cherry lime rickeys and long salted
pretzels in plastic see-through bins.

We’re far from the Patio Movie Theater,
with its double features, cartoons,
newsreels and a goldfish pond
in a beautifully tiled lobby to
throw pennies into.

We’re far from Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor with
its Kitchen Sink—a jumble of ice cream,
chocolate syrup, whipped cream, maraschino
cherries, and a hodgepodge of other things
that can serve up to six.

We’re far from the Empire Rollerdrome,
Ebinger’s Bakery, Erasmus Hall High School,
Freddie Fitzsimmons Bowling Lanes and
Ebbets Field, home of the ‘55 world champs,
’57 world chumps, who left Flatbush for LA.

We’re far from college, marriage,
work, retirement and a quiet
home in the country away from
the racket, hubbub and delight
of inner-city childhood life.

Martin H. Levinson is a member of the Authors Guild, National Book Critics Circle, PEN, and the book review editor for ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has published nine books and numerous articles and poems in various publications. He holds a PhD from NYU and lives in Forest Hills, NY.  martinlevinson.com

T R A V E L   I had a lot of fun teasing the French when I lived in Paris in the 70’s. All I had to do was invite friends over, serve four courses instead of seven, make pancakes for lunch, put the salad at the beginning of the meal instead of the end, or – worst transgression of all – dump the meat, potatoes, vegetables and salad all in one plate, American-style, and say, “Voilà!”

It was easy to be a rebel over there, something I’m good at as long as attitude counts more than subversive action. What can I tell you? It was the spirit of the times. I never burned any bras, but, on the other hand, I didn’t wear any either.

In the playground I took off my shoes and squatted in the sand alongside my baby son. And slid down the slides after him. The other French mothers were too busy admonishing their offspring not to get water from the Place des Vosges fountains on their leather-trimmed “playclothes” to have my kind of fun. The occasional father would guide his child up the stairs of the slide like this: “First place your right foot on this step, lift your left foot up x centimeters, now pull yourself slowly up!” The poor child would lose all taste for the adventure ahead and reap the scorn of the other little ones waiting on the steps behind him.

Of course I wore jeans with an embroidered butterfly I had stitched on to cover a hole that was – come to think of it – suggestively positioned on my thigh. Let the françaises prance in their heels and summer dresses. I had scarves in my shoulder-length hair.

Still I looked French enough pushing a baby carriage for one confused American tourist to continue to talk to me in French even after I said, “Listen, you can speak to me in English!”

Other outrages of mine – putting the light on during the day in my darkened apartment before the appointed (?) hour, rinsing dishes with the water running, “insulting” a clove of garlic by not slicing it daintily enough, boorishly putting a container of milk on the kitchen table (instead of a creamer), oh, and picking up my son whenever he cried instead of letting him “make his lungs.”

Not exactly a march on Washington, but I did my darnedest to stand up for the good ole American way of life!

Janet Garber’s satiric novel, dream job, wacky adventures of an HR Manager, available on www.janetgarber.com. She’s working on a second novel about a Franco-American couple living in Paris in the 70’s.

T R A V E L  Where’s Fredy when I need him?

Fredy was my “go-to” mechanic in Costa Rica. From brake pads to fuel injectors, shocks to wheel bearings, Fredy could diagnose it, fix it and I would be on my way – usually within a day.  Sometimes he would even deliver the repaired car to the house!

I’m jinxed when it comes to used cars.

We bought a 2013 Hyundai Tucson the day after our arrival back in the U.S. – actually within hours – because our “second” Costa Rican car was a Tucson (Tooc-sun in CR) and it was reliable has heck. BTW: in 2011, we bought a 2004 Tucson for $20,000. In 2017, we paid 1/2 that for a 2013.

We bought the car on Friday, 7/28. First road trip, the A/C was iffy. Since we weren’t sure if it was the 100 degree real feel outside that the a/c didn’t handle it, we drove it the rest of the day. Next day we were convinced it was not US it was the Tucson, we took the car back to the dealer on Monday. They wanted us to leave it but we were running around like crazy house hunting. I took it in on Tuesday. They sent me back on the road after a couple hours, but Wednesday it was not cooling like should. I took it back in to the dealer, he gave us a loaner, and three days later we are still without our car.

We were told today they had reproduced the problem, but needed Hyundai to sign off on the repair. I guess South Korea is kinda preoccupied with Kim Jung Yum Yum because are awaiting further instructions on repair of our car.

Fredy could have rebuilt the damn a/c/ by now.  I’m positive.

If it’s not fixed soon, Nancy may go ballistic before Kim Jung Yum Yum does.

Mark Van Patten writes a blog called Going Like Sixty and has been married to the same woman since 1968.