Hawaii

Childhood memories are potent.

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The beach at the very end of what used to be Lawrence Road on the Kaneohe Marine base was one of Oahu’s less spectacular beaches. Unlike Waikiki, sand had not been imported from Australia to create a tourist-friendly spot to sunbathe. No. The beach was a gleaming black lava flow with large, jagged pieces of the black rock the Goddess Pele had tossed about, sitting atop the long-since-cooled lava flow of her anger that oozed across even earlier flows.

In this manner, the beautiful island was formed. The ancient path of Pele’s wrath was worn smooth by the eternal motion of the Pacific Ocean.  The water was a vivid blue that one can’t imagine until they see it for themselves — up close and personal.  The crashing waves were edged with white foam reaching for the sky. None of it looks real.

That shoreline smelled of plumeria and hibiscus. It smelled of coconuts lying on the ground in the bright tropical sun.   It smelled of salt and mildew and of decomposing small sea creatures trapped in the tidepools when the ocean receded.

I was a feral child crouched over a tidepool formed by smooth lava and the blue water of Kaneohe Bay. 

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My First Experience with Fine Dining

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Shamelessly Stolen from Vintage Hawaii on Facebook

I’m standing on the boardwalk between teahouses, looking down at the koi glistening in the Honolulu sunset.

I am so thin that everyone thinks they’re being original by calling me Twiggy. This evening, we are celebrating my 8th birthday at the Pagoda Restaurant.  August 3, 1967. We didn’t know it yet, but I would soon be diagnosed with a serious thyroid problem that was rare in kids. 

There were not enough calories to keep me unhungry.  I was never sated.  Never full. My metabolism was always on overdrive due to my hyperactive thyroid.

My father, a career Marine, had been transferred to the Marine base in Kaneohe.  We – my mother, brother, and I – joined him there in May.  We also didn’t know it yet, but my father would soon ship out for another year in Vietnam.  He had just gotten back from his first tour. By the time he left the Marine Corps, he had been through four combat tours.

But on the night of my 8th birthday, we stood on the boardwalk of the Floating Pagoda Restaurant waiting for a table to open.  I was entranced by the fish, but hungry.  As usual.

I think this was my first experience with fine dining. It’s the first one I can remember. The open-air restaurant was all white tablecloths, glistening china, and cold ice water in the first goblets I’d ever seen. The Asian waitresses wore exquisitely embroidered kimonos that gleamed in the light. 

My father was finally back, and we were all together again.  I was so very happy.  I was a Daddy’s girl until the day he died at 79.

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National Pancake Day was yesterday

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National Pancake Day was yesterday. As usual, I’m a day late and a dollar short. Nevermind that I had a pecan waffle with extra pecans sans syrup at the Waffle House this morning.

Still and all, I offer you this, my homage to maple syrup (and to pancakes though indirectly.)

As a child, I did not like pancake syrup though I loved the shape of the Aunt Jemima glass bottle. Everyone thought I was weird, but I much preferred my pancakes and French toast with tons of butter. Dripping with butter. Drowning in it. Floating.

Some time during my misspent early adulthood, I did not mark the day in my calendar of things to remember, I was unceremoniously given pancakes with syrup already applied. Not wanting to be one of those people, I unenthusiastically loaded a forkful and put it in my mouth.

Oh my. All the pleasure pheromones and chemicals and other assorted signals lit up like a Christmas tree at the North Pole and I smiled big and broad.

Real maple syrup tapped from trees is one of God’s gifts

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Hawaii (or you can go back)

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I was gifted with the experience of living in Hawaii for three years.  I was 7 when we moved there and 10 when we left.  I did not then realize what I had been given.  I guess I thought everyone lived in paradise, but simultaneously I also knew I had lived somewhere special. 

We left on January 10, 1970.  It’s funny that I remember that date.  Our last act in Hawaii was to go to the bank and withdraw all our money.  While at the bank, my brother and I got on one another’s nerves.  I poked him.  He kicked me.  And tore a hole in the lace of my very “gourmet” dress.  I was incensed.  I was quite the fan of the Galloping Gourmet, a television cooking show hosted by Graham Kerr who was more often than not drunk.  Gourmet was the highest praise I could give anything. 

Hawaii was gourmet.

We arrived in San Francisco a week later via ocean liner.  The crossing had been rocky and my mother was inflicted with horrific sea sickness.  My brother and I had been left to our own devices for the most part and had the run of the ship.  I remember bits and pieces of that sailing, but the memories are not vivid like some of my memories of Hawaii. My mother describes disembarking in San Francisco as being like the Wizard of Oz in reverse.  We went from technicolor to black and white. 

I always vowed to go back, but not until I could do so with grace and style.  Hawaii is horrifically expensive if one isn’t lucky enough to live in military housing with access to the commissary – the military’s grocery store.

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