Chapter 75

Steve

Ah, Wednesday morning! I was still half-asleep, but knew something was happening today.

I sat up straight and said, loud enough to disturb the sleep of the ladies next to me, "We're going sailing today!"

Mercy rolled over, looking up at me while stretching, and said, "Only because Chuck is back."

I asked, "He is? Did he call last night?"

"No, Silly, he came home while we were playing up at the hot tub. His girls should have called, and may have tried, but I think they were all just happy he was home."

Sue stretched and pinched Mercy on the tit, then tried to cover her massive nipples when Mercy tried to retaliate. Juanita then said, "Okay, girls, be nice. Enjoy the morning we are going to begin our special cruise."

Mickey sat up and said, "You know I'm excited. This will be my first big vacation anywhere."

Kathy rolled out of bed and grabbed my hand, pulling me with her toward the bathroom. She said, "Let's get a shower and greet everyone for breakfast."

We were showering, when our huge very oversized shower was quickly crowded with six of us in there. Mickey was rubbing her belly and asking, "Can you see it yet? Can you tell that I'm pregnant?"

Sue said, "I think we should run you over to the doc so you can start on some prenatal vitamins. He might want to do a sonogram already if you think you're over a month."

Mickey grinned and said, "Yeah, I'm over a month, probably two, at least. I really don't know what the date would be."

Breakfast on the patio was almost a party mood. Tiny and Abe had arrived home from Hawaii late last night, so they filled me in on the trip, along with what Crystal and Bear were up to. Tiny said, "Their golf weekends, along with the mainland shopping sprees, are going over much bigger than expected. They want to book as many as two hundred people a trip going over there for each tour. There are fewer people who want to go to the mainland, but it is still significant. We were able to resolve this issue with some direct charters with airlines. They are working with us so we can give the golf and holiday packages at really good rate. Their original idea was a good one, and it's working better than they expected."

Ruth told me, "We probably could have handled everything over the phone or on a video conference, but Crystal and Bear feel like they are more of a part of us now that we went over personally. You're going have to begin making more trips over there too, Steve, if for nothing else, to pass out a few 'attaboys' and 'attagirls' from the boss."

Abe said, "The new cart plant that we set up over there is producing at a good rate. I don't think we need to increase production as there is a limited market. Crystal has a couple of men on the two main islands that go to cart communities and hold repair days. They've been very successful gaining interest toward our carts. They take at least two carts with them every day, and almost always sell them at one of their stops. We're not going to get rich from the cart portion of our operation over there, but it is a profitable venture.

"Now, let me tell you about the S&S sales and repair dealership over there. We're not doing a lot in new sales for forklifts, but they are steady. The big dollars are coming from our sales and leases of generators, and on two islands, compressors. The dealership only has four outside men who cover both sales and warranty. That's enough, as they are able to canvas the businesses throughout the island chain. They are now working hotels and resorts individually. Hawaii has a decent power grid, but does suffer brownouts because of demand. Whole outages don't happen often, just enough that some emergency power is needed. The salesmen are working with some electrical contractors to install backup generators for the hotels.

"Another good thing we did over there is to create that rebuild shop. We're rebuilding generators, compressors, forklifts, and even a few of the heavy lifts. The shop is really producing some great numbers. That was one of the items that Tiny wanted to check on. He found out that the numbers are real. Crystal and Bear are doing a good job watching over all of the ventures and venues over there."

I asked, "What is the condition of the hotels and resorts? How are they doing?"

Tiny answered, "We didn't take a lot of time to go over books or to completely tour all of the hotels, but the ones we did visit are in good shape and the morale seems to be great in all of them. If the employees are happy, then our guests will be happy."

"It's good you were able to get back before I left," I said. "I was concerned about that, although I know we have more good people here that could have taken care of things."

Chuck and his family were having breakfast here on the patio this morning. I was happy to see that he and Lisa were back from wherever it was they were. It wouldn't have been good if we had to wait an extra day or two for him to get back. After watching the news last night, I kind of figured out where Chuck and Lisa had been, but that was like an all out war, not just an arrest or drug bust. I'm sure he'll tell us about it in time, but with stuff like that in your life, you just want to be at peace with the world.

Chuck and all of his family were excited that our trip was going to get underway. He was talking with Dewey about the weather reports he had gotten from the internet. There was a pretty strong front that would probably pass us, and then stall around us, giving us six or seven days of heavy seas. Chuck was concerned about that portion of the trip. Dewey was telling him, "With a boat as large as yours, you'll know you're in heavy seas, but we'll be safe. Your boat can handle anything probably up to thirty, forty, and even fifty foot waves without too much trouble, and those are few and far between. That report was for seas up to twenty feet, so you know the boat will rock, but not bad. Some who might get motion sickness will probably have a problem, but we'll be fine."

Mercy said, "The kids are bigger now, and wait till you watch them in a storm. They push all the furniture to one side then roll back and forth on the floor with the motion of the boat. They get pretty crazy playing 'roll with the boat'."

Dewey's wife said, "When bad weather comes, our kids usually pile up in front of the TV and watch a movie. They don't seem to care or mind that much."

Frieda looked around at the other two mommies to be, and said, "Sure hope you two don't have any motion sickness problems. If we're going through a storm like that, I'm going to have to make sure we have plenty of Seven-Up and crackers. That might be more than my system can handle. I don't usually get motion sick, but too much is too much."

I told them all, "I'll bet we won't see any real bad seas. Even twenty foot waves aren't going to make us wallow around much. If the storm gets bad, we just turn into it and ride it out. The good part is that it will pass."

Sue was more upbeat, "We need some warm days so we can use that top deck for sunbathing. I just love the way it is so cozy up there. The best time ever to get some sun is when we're out on the water."

Brandy was talking to Chuck next to me, and I couldn't help but overhear, "Maria just doesn't want to come with us. She wants to stay home and take care of the house and take care of Lena and Tina. I think she's afraid of the seas after watching that TV program about those Alaskan crab fishermen."

Chuck asked, "Should I talk to her? Try to convince her to come along?"

"She might listen to you, but the person she would probably listen to would be Juanita." Brandy leaned over and said to me, "Can you have Juanita talk to Maria. She's afraid the storms will be too much for her, and she's now talking about staying home. We all want her to come with us. We've been planning on her going. All of her clothes are already on the boat."

"Sure," I said, "I'll talk to her and get Juanita to talk to her too. Let me get Nita now, we're going to be leaving pretty soon. The bus you chartered should be here in less than an hour."

I found Juanita helping the kids get the last of their stuff together. When I told her about Maria, she said, "Let me talk to her, Steve. She's told me a couple of times how she's looking forward to seeing Italy and the Vatican. She said she wants to see Ireland, too."

Nita went to find Maria and when I got back to the patio, Maria and Nita had Chuck over on one of the couches. Maria was hugging Chuck and smiling, so I guess that is a good sign. A few minutes later, Juanita came to me and said, "She really wanted to go but was afraid of the ocean. Chuck assured her she would be fine, and I told her how we had been in a bad storm before and we all sort of enjoyed it. She's coming."

Chuck got all of his people together so they could go get the last of their luggage. They left for their house in two carts.

Glenda and Martin had come to the patio this morning with a pull along piece of luggage. Glenda said it was the little toiletries they would need. All of their clothes were already on the boat. You could tell Martin was nervous. This would be the first time the couple had been away from the park in decades.

I helped clean up from breakfast, but Nancy and Susan were trying to chase me out of the kitchen. Susan said, "You just get yourself ready to go. Help get the kids out of their rooms and ready to get on the bus. They're all a little crazy with excitement right now."

The small bags with each kid's special stuff were out in the hallway, so I began hauling them out to the yard to load on the bus. Bonita was making trip after trip, until I asked her, "What all are you taking, Bonita?"

"I'm taking my guitars, and my music. I have my new violin and all of the video lessons I'm supposed to practice. You know, Daddy, I have a lot of things to take."

"Violin?" I asked, "When did you begin playing the violin?"

"When I heard all that beautiful Mozart and Beethoven music. I heard that country guy, Charlie Daniels, and I want to play like that too. I need to know how to play all kinds of instruments, not just the guitar and piano."

I was standing there, scratching my head. "How does stuff like that happen and I don't know about it?" I thought to myself.

There was a steady stream of kids finishing getting what they wanted to take, then heading out to wait for the bus. Mickey came with her little suitcase and gave me a quick kiss on the way by. Juanita had a silly grin on her face as she passed by, so I went into the bedroom to see what was going on. Sue and Mercy were holding some funny looking toys and discussing what to take.

I asked, "Do you guys think I'm going to break down and you need some backup?"

Mercy turned toward me, blushing, "We use these with each other, you know, we like to play with each other, and we were trying to decide which ones will be the most fun to ah, ah, use when we play with Chuck's girls."

Sue was grinning her crooked grin, "Perhaps we'll let him watch one time. That'll let him know what we do and why these are important."

As she zipped up her small case, Kathy said, "Those two are probably the horniest two women on the face of the earth. I swear they could play twenty-four hours a day and still be ready for more."

As Kathy was leaving, Mercy said, "Yeah, but you sure are in the middle of things when they heat up. Take that big one, Sue; that's Kathy's favorite."

I grabbed my bag and the gun case I wanted to take along. Chuck has a huge arsenal on board, but I wanted to have what I liked if something came up. I'm sure we wouldn't need anything for the trip. The last time we went over there, there wasn't even a hint of trouble.

As I left the room, I said, "Better hurry, that bus is going to be here any minute."

The two girls were zipping up their bags as I said that, and both said together, "We're coming." Then Sue giggled and whispered, "Not yet but we're going to come a lot on this trip." The two girls really began giggling then.

A big bus was parking in front of the yard at that moment. The driver got out and opened the luggage compartment doors for all of our bags and last minute items.

Two carts came up to the side of the house with all of Chuck's people on them. Wanda and John were with them, and I remembered that they wanted to go over with us, but were going to fly back from the Riviera so they would be back at least two weeks earlier than we would.

They brought all of their last minute bags with them and loaded them onto the bus, then Chuck came over to me and said, "Man, I am like a kid. I'm so excited that I have to pee every fifteen minutes. This is going to be really something."

Dewey, Sheila, Sheena, and kids all came out the patio door and began loading their stuff onto the bus. The kids were all being giddy and nuts because of the excitement. As people finished putting their stuff in the luggage area of the bus, they began finding seats inside.

Tiny called me back into the patio, and as Chuck walked in, he waved us over. Tiny said, "Come and let me give you two a toast." He poured from one of our special bottles, said 'good luck' to us and we chugged our toast. I was happy to go, but always felt bad leaving such a good friend behind.

Soon there was only Chuck, me, and the bus driver outside the bus, with Tiny and Ruth standing there to wish us goodbye. I climbed up on the bus and said, "Everyone look around to make sure everyone who is supposed to be going is on the bus. I see all my kids and all of Dewey's, so that's taken care of, but are all the adults here?"

After everyone looked at each other back and forth, Sue said, "I think everyone is here."

Brandy said, "Even Maria. We're all glad she's coming with us."

I took a deep breath and told the driver, "Let's do it."

He closed the door and I sat on one of the front seats, next to Kathy. As soon as we cleared the front gate, I asked her, "So, when did Bonita begin violin lessons?"

Kathy kind of chuckled, "That was last week. She told me she wanted to learn to play the violin. When I told her that it might be more difficult than she thought, she said, "Mrs. Carnahan has been showing me how to play and is going to let me use hers on our boat trip. She also found a whole bunch of music and some videos for me to learn with."

"Steve," Kathy said, "Bonita showed me what she had learned already and she played scales for me naming each note and telling me the differences on where her fingers were going. She was playing four complete octaves. I didn't even know there was that kind of range on a violin. I'm telling you, Bonita is going to need some special tutoring soon. I don't know what will be the right thing to do, but I don't want to waste that talent."

"Amazing," I said, with a shake of my head. "It's hard to believe how fast she learns instruments. I've watched her teaching the other kids how to play the guitar, and I was watching her teach Trixie beginning piano. Dixie told me that Bonita is teaching her too, so when does she have time to play like a kid? I know she likes the motocross, and she does go play ball sometimes, but does she have enough play time?"