This Photo Cracks Us Up

The thing that we find so amusing about this photograph is the apparent reversal of parent-child roles. What’s going on is that Basil Horangic is holding up a Slam waterproof bag that he’s found to be so valuable during his Menlo Park-based family’s cruise from the Black Sea to the Caribbean. He has a little-boy look on his face, don’t you think? Meanwhile, son Basil Jr, who is nine, is looking up from his ‘paperwork’ with a very skeptical parent-like ’what-kind-of-cock-’n’-bull-story-is-he-giving-you?’ look. We laugh every time we glance at the photo.

We’ll have a story on the Horangic family — wife Caroline, daughter Theodora, 14, daughter Helen, 12, and young Basil — in the June issue of Latitude 38, which comes out Friday, May 29. They’ve been doing a family cruise that’s been different from most, in more ways than one. The main reasons for it have been to promote family togetherness and for the three kids to get a broader-than-normal education. And based on our conversation with them, the kids are learning a lot more than they would have, had they been in a regular school back home. Plus, they’ve had some pretty interesting extracurricular activities. The girls, for example, both sail Optis in international regattas, and all three kids kiteboard and scuba dive.