My wife and I recently took my wife’s mother, Julia Ackerman Frey, on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords to celebrate her 85th birthday. The Princess Cruise Line ship we were on, departed from Southampton (SP) England and went through the English Channel to carry us all the way up the coast and islands of Norway. We went way north of the Arctic Circle. Although the ship was huge, approximately 100 yards long and 15 stories high, and carried about eighteen hundred passengers plus hundreds of crew, it was able to venture all the way up a number of these Norwegian fjords. The fjords, some 60 miles long, were formed by glaciers cutting their way through the rocky mountains of Norway thousands of years ago as the last ice age receded. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, consisting of rock cliffs as high as 3,000 feet on each side with snow still on the top melting, thus creating waterfalls tumbling down the mountain into the crystal blue water of the fjord. I counted twelve waterfalls in one scene as we came around a bend. Being a boatsman myself, I was also worried about the ship running aground until the captain assured me there was no danger of that, since the water was at least 450 feet deep, even at the mountain end of the fjord.

The captain also shared that our cruise passengers were about 50 percent British, 25 percent American, 5 percent Canadian and the rest from some 20 other countries.There were many occasions, of course,  to engage in conversations with our fellow passengers. At first I would simply identify myself as being an American. The British would never allow me to get by with that. They wanted to know where in America. When I said “Florida,” I nearly always got a “I’ve been there!” reaction, with a “where in Florida?” follow up question.  When I responded “Deerfield Beach,” it was amazing to me how many of them knew our city and some of them knew it well.  One fellow said he generally stays at the Embassy Suites and likes to jog in that neighborhood. There seemed to be two main reasons they chose to come here: shopping was first, and our beach was second. The shopping part proves the truth of my Economics 101 class (taken long ago) that people typically will go to great lengths to save money. Thus, Britain’s high taxes on clothes and other items drive their citizens to Deerfield Beach.  When I suggested he might want to buy a place here, he declined, saying “your property taxes are too high.”   My Economics 101 professor was right again. Our city and county politicians need to take note!

David Eller,

Publisher

07-17-08