I'm a Traveling Man

We just came off a really nice cruise, to four ports, with two full days at sea, and some really nice shows, including a tribute to Ricky Nelson, a rock and roll icon of the late 1950's into the early sixties. Hard to believe that he was singing songs like Hello, Mary Lou and Poor Little Fool way back before we found the Beatles and American rock went into the shadows. Ricky Nelson would die in 1985, when the DC-3 he and his band were flying crashed. But he left a legacy, born in 1967 - in the form of two hot swedish blonds, as his son Matthew referred to themselves when he appeared with his twin, Gunnar, in a performance of their father's music, as well as some of their own from the 1990's. Back then they were known as the Nelson Brothers, Nelson Twins, or just plain Nelson. Their hair was waist length and very blonde. Debut album was After the Rain, which went platinum in 1991.

That's Matthew on the right, Gunner on the left. Gunner is 45 minutes younger, and also played drums during a jam session up on the fourteenth deck the night before we left the ship. Both guys are very personable, and that hour on the top deck was something they invited passengers to attend. When the concert started, there was the usual Royal Caribbean announcement about "no photography or video taping", and then Matthew said "our rules are to ignore that nonsense and we welcome you to take pictures and video to your hearts content". Like I said, really great performers.

Oh, all that glittery nonsense behind Matthew apparently was a half-curtain behind him. When I uploaded the pictures I thought my camera was screwed up, but in no shots were those irritating spots in the foreground, only the background. Thank God, as the last time I was in Haiti, with a smaller camera, I got rain dried on the lens, and the left side of most pictures had dried water spots. This trip, I only managed to fall on a cement step, bruise my backside something fierce, get road rash on an elbow and actually bend the camera case (but it still worked). Like my wife says, "we can't take you anywhere".