Ray Charles Takes a Cruise

My grandmother and I were traveling through Europe on a cruise ship. At eighty years old, she'd needed a new career, a career that could keep her feeling occupied and necessary but wouldn't strain her. So she'd begun giving art lectures on cruise ships. She would give lectures that related each destination and she one guest could sail for free. On this particular Baltic cruise, I was her one guest.

My grandmother particularly disliked our dinner mates. Each night, we ate at an assigned table with four people from Colorado who talked about school cafeterias and US industry.  They bored my grandmother and she suggested we start eating at the buffet. I refused--I wasn't about to give up my only non-buffet style meal of the day.

One night, after we'd argued about dinner, we wandered into the ship's movie theater. 'Ray' was playing and we were both instantly transfixed. For my grandmother, the movie called back a flood of memories. For me, it was a revelation. Ray Charles had seemed like a piece of early rock history to me. I'd never realized that I liked his music.

The film solved our dinner dispute for one evening. We wandered into the dining room late and joined our Colorado table mates in time for the main course.