Grey Sky. .

…and an empty sea. There’s almost always a ship, a sailboat, a barge, a something out in the Strait of Georgia when I walk down there, but not today. Everybody’s home thinking about the future, maybe. This summer, the number of cruise ships going by, both in Point Roberts, out of Seattle, and in Roberts Creek, out of Vancouver, has been impressive. Some of them look as if they could easily be hauling small towns around…2,000 passengers, at least. That could be an interesting community activity, I suppose.

I’ve never been on a cruise. It seems kind of self-indulgent to me, I guess, or it requires me to be more indolent than I am comfortable being. It also doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that people like me do, despite the fact that I have many friends, who are indeed in many ways like me, and who go on cruises and have good times. But I doubt if I would. Jackie O goes on cruises, the Astors go on cruises, movie stars (say, Fred Astaire) in highly romantic movies go on cruises. The military also goes on cruises, of a sort. All things being equal, I’d rather work in the garden. Of course, by next year, maybe nobody will be going on cruises, maybe everybody will be working in their garden whether they want to or not.

I was looking at an old cook book of my mother’s the other day, one that I fancy she received as a wedding present since it dates from then. What can it have been like to have started out a new life as the Great Depression was just beginning but the direction was clear? Of course, she probably didn’t know it was the Great Depression at the time, just bad economic times. Her parents lost all their money in that great crash, but she and my father didn’t have any money, so they didn’t have anything to lose, and they both had jobs, although she quit hers shortly afterwards.

But the thing about the cookbook is this: Although, first published in 1930 (with 1931, 1933 editions), it was written in the 1920’s, when everyone was flying high, when people who never before had had money had suddenly become people with a lot of money, people who had big houses and went on cruises and gave dinner parties. About 50 pages of this relatively small book are devoted to explaining how to handle servants and how to entertain guests at meals: what the servants wear and when they change attire (butlers wear different attire before and after dinner, e.g.). A great deal of advice is provided on how many different pieces of silver are to be arranged at each plate, what kinds of foods go together for an ‘informal meal’ as opposed to a ‘formal meal.’ What to serve at a formal tea, and where to serve it. And on. In addition, there is a special section on how infants and children are to be introduced to food.

Clearly, this book is intended to bring people up to speed in some higher social class than they started out, to make them feel more confidence in their new position. Maybe going on cruises is like that, designed to make people feel better about having enough money to go on a cruise. My guess is that the cookbook’s instructions would have just made them feel more intimidated, and maybe a cruise as well, but then I’m not so interested in cruises or dinner parties. I mean, look at the Astors: did it do them any good? At least, not after the first part.