Living in Honolulu

 

Jim and I moved into Honolulu proper to a 10^th floor apartment with a lanai overlooking city to ocean. I don’t know quite why we moved there as Jim always took care of relocating, (and I loved that about him.) So he chose the place, maybe forgetting his fear of heights.  That lanai was a source of torture for the man. It was large enough to hold a table, several chairs, a hibachi, and plants. Jim always sat in the chair nearest the sliding door.  Always. 

He would not join at the table whenever our portly friend Dick Royes was over for dinner. Maybe he worried about the tensile strength of the rebar supports.   Dick’s theory on the fear of height, one of his many interesting and often outrageous ideas, was that it wasn’t so much the height that people were afraid of, but that they wanted to jump off - and feared they would.  

One night I was shooting photos from the lanai during a lightning storm over the ocean when Jim noticed me standing on a chair on the lanai. I was going for a better shot.  What?  He thought I was going to fall off not just the chair but the lanai itself.  He pretty much melted into a puddle.  After that I made it a point to water the hanging plants when he wasn’t home.     

          

It was convenient to walk to Sandy’s office, refreshing in the cool of a morning, a straight shot down Ward Avenue, past people doing tai chi in treed Thomas Square, then by Neal S Blaisdell Center, through a business district, right on Ala Moana Blvd. one block to my office.  

We attended many events at Blaisdell Center, it was a quick walk from the new digs.  It was home court for UH Manoa basketball so we went to their games, (that’s the big orange ball, Steph.)  I saw some Broadway plays, Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin” and “A Chorus Line” among them.  

The concert hall seats 2,157 so the stage is up close and intimate.  A young George Carlin had me in stitches with his comedy.  Fleetwood Macs launched and wrapped their 1977 – 1978 “Rumors” tour here and I attended both concerts.   

I went to a baby luau there in one of the smaller venues. It is a Hawaiian tradition honoring a baby’s first birthday and guests bring envelopes of cash for the baby.  This party was a huge event with several hundred people attending. It was particularly joyous as baby Arthur had contracted meningitis and nearly died. He was a picture of robust health that night, surrounded by one after another of his seven doting sisters.  

It was a great party.  Food and booze flowed freely.  There was a dance floor and music played from a stage at one end, cycling through musicians and sets of Hawaiian music, Country music, ending with Rock and Roll and everybody on the dance floor.  I think we just missed the hula dancers early on in the evening.  

It was a luau so there was all the good stuff like Kalua pig, Laulau, and Lomi salmon, other fish delicacies.  I tried Opihi that night, an onolicious mollusk clinging to rugged reefs and harvested with great risk to human life.  Eaten raw. Yum! I was in my element.