No eyebrows were raised when Bill told us he would miss the next couple weeks of our weekly volleyball and/or golf game. The mild-mannered, mostly retired pharmacist traveled frequently and we had grown accustomed to his occasional sojourns, though we dearly missed the athletic skill and dry wit he brought to the affairs.
But the Mediterranean cruise he and his wife – who reside in the San Gabriel Valley – were about to take was a tad more intrepid than usual. And when word of the fate of the Costa Concordia – which crashed into rocks off Italy’s Tuscan coast on Friday, January 13 – reached our next assembly, we all wondered: Was Bill possibly on that ship?
We learned the answer this morning.
“We have a story to tell,” Bill quipped, in his standard understated manner.
He will always have his sister-in-law to thank for avoiding the tragedy, in which sixteen lives were lost as of this writing. “Twelve hours before we were supposed to board the ship, she suggested that we get on at another port. The ship sunk between the two cities and we were supposed to be on board.”
Bill said he and his wife were “shocked” when the concierge at their hotel informed them their ship had sunk overnight…

FOR MORE, SEE THIS THURSDAY’S PRINT EDITION OF THE TRIBUNE

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