Bang, Bang Whoosh!

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         Bang Bang Whoosh!
Monday will be the 4th of July here in Hawaii, just as it is throughout all of America. The past couple of years it has been much more quiet here than in the past. We used to have to endure six-foot strings of firecrackers, loud explosions, and lots of smoke. It is still legal to purchase fireworks with a permit. There is also a huge display paid for by Ala Moana Shopping Center.

Historians tell us that the Chinese first made gunpowder. The mixture is fairly simple: sulphur,potassium nitrate, and powdered charcoal. Years ago as kids, we too used to make gunpowder. The ingredients were easily purchased. The Chinese had much better results than we did. Sometime a bang, but most often  a bright sizzle, and lots of smoke.

You see, fireworks were illegal in Michigan, and so we had to do the best we could. Before discovering gunpowder, we would cut off the end of a wood kitchen match. It would put between two bolts screwed together with one single nut. When slammed on the sidewalk, there would be a bang. Very time-consuming.

One other noise maker involved using small lumps of carbide. Carbide was used in miner's lamps. A small handful of carbide would be placed in a large tin can with a removable lid, and a hole punched in the bottom. Water would be sprinkled on the carbide, the lid put on, and the can placed on the ground and held with your foot while a lighted match would be thrust through the hole. The result was that the lid blew off , making a noise. It was acetylene gas, but we didn't know it.

And then there were smugglers of fireworks from either Canada or Ohio. Or some guy would pull his car up to the curb and say "You kids want to buy some firecrackers?" Well, of course we did, twenty-five cents a package. You carefully unbraided each cracker now you really had several bangs.

Way back then there was always an ariel fireworks display at the fairgrounds. Once a year, on the 4th of July. Living here in Waikiki, we have fireworks displays every Friday night from Hilton Hawaiian Village across from our condo. The display is easily seen from our lanai. We have come to be so used to the event, we simply try to ignore the fireworks, but it is no use. Our dog, MaiTai, as soon as the first boom goes off he becomes excited and runs out to the lanai and back again, telling us "It's fireworks time!" We think that this is pretty unusual, as most dogs fear fireworks.

And so another 4th of July is soon upon us, with hotdogs, potato salad and fireworks. Let all of us remember why the 4th of July is so important.

    Aloha
    Grant

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

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       Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Smoke no longer gets in your eyes. It is a great song, but a bad habit. Here in Hawaii there is an on going program using nicotine patches, to help people stop smoking. Also, smoking is banned in all restaurants and public buildings. Even on our beautiful beaches. Residents in our building recently voted to ban smoking on our lanais.

But it has not always been so. Almost everyone smoked. During WWII cigarettes were included in K rations for the soldiers. Magazines had ads for Chesterfield cigarettes  with pictures of doctors proclaiming that they "satisfied." The brand  Lucky Strike had a slogan L.S.M.F.T (Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco). I remember one ad showing a girl telling a guy to "Blow some smoke my way."

People smoked everywhere, restaurants,bars, and even on airplanes. In the arm rests there were ashtrays. I remember visiting NewYork City on a senior class trip 1955,   and a sign in Times Square is worth mentioning. It was a large blue neon sign on the right side of the street with the word "Bond," and every so often a large smoke ring would come from the letter "O." I took a picture of that sign in Times Square, and years later I met a guy whose father built that sign. He wanted a picture of it, but I had lost it.

My father smoked unfiltered "Camel" cigarettes. I began smoking very early. As kids we smoked dried Tiger lily stems. Very hollow stems. There were also white candy cigarettes with red tips. As a sophomore I smoked a "Yellow Bowl" brand pipe. They came in various styles. My father discovered that I smoked a pipe and gave me one, as I recorded somewhere earlier in this blog.

In the Navy nearly everyone smoked. I did, ten cents a pack, a buck for a carton. The cartons were wax paper covered in order to keep them fresh while at sea. When I left my ship, my seabag was half full of cartons of cigarettes.

I didn't smoke so much while in college, but when I began teaching high school, I really smoked. Teachers would duck into the teacher's lounge and grab a few puffs between classes. But I should here note that kids back then were smoking too, but not a tobacco product. You could really smell pot on their clothes.

I quit smoking many years ago. Cold turkey. My buddy George, used some psychology on me, asking "Who was in control?, me or the cigarette?" Looking back I recall stained fingers and teeth. My sports jackets smelled of smoke.

Someone once said that there is nothing worse than a reformed drunk or smoker.
But I should note that I am saving a lot of money, as a pack of cigarettes here in Honolulu is over eight dollars. Do the math and see what a carton costs.

Aloha
Grant

Skirting the Problem

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        Skirting the Problem

Sometimes a story is just too good not to be told again. Such is the case with Patti Smart. (no relation I think) Patti was a flight attendant for 50 years. She flew with Aloha Airlines until she retired in 2007. She said that she applied to Hawaiian Airlines too,but she wasn't hired because she had freckles. "Things were done differently back then," she said.

Her classroom was aboard a DC3, flown by WWII pilots. While on probation, she was serving pineapple juice to passengers, when a woman's elbow knocked a tray she was holding and dumped it into her lap. She was soaked and sticky. And she did not have a replacement skirt. She had to made do with striped capris pants.

She washed the skirt, but there was no way to dry it. And as the DC-3's were not pressurized, the copilot opened slightly one of the windows. But it did not speed dry the skirt. So the window was opened all the way and out flew the skirt! She thought that she would be fired.

The pilot radioed dispatch and asked that her mother bring her another skirt when they landed. All the planes in the Pacific used the same radio frequency, so the story  of the skirt was heard and enjoyed by many.

The passengers took up a collection to buy her a new skirt. Her mother was angry as she had to stop cooking, and drive to the airport. There was no freeway, and it took time.

She was not fired, and retired at the age of 69, one of the senior flight attendants in the United States.

I borrowed the story from Bob Sigall, an excellent author and  writer for our local paper.

      Aloha
      Grant

Finding Miranda

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           Finding Miranda

It has been reported from San Franscisco that men while digging a basement, made a discovery,  a coffin containing the body of a 19th century 3-year-old girl. The body seen through two windows in the well-sealed casket, was well-preserved. The girl had been dressed in a long white embroidered dress. There was lavender in her hair, a lavender cross over her heart and eucalyptus leaves at her side. A rose was in her right hand.

The bronze and lead coffin and the preparations for her burial, indicated that she came from wealth. But who was she? What was her name? Where did she live?

Answers to these questions may someday come from strands of her blonde hair. Anthropology professor Jelmer Eerkens, of the University of California Davis,  plans to snip the hair into smaller pieces and analyze the hair for protein and other chemicals and to identify its isotope signature. It would be possible to determine the child's diet.  Also where she may have lived, and many other things.

The mystery girl has been named "Miranda Eve." The girl's coffin will be placed inside  a second larger wooden coffin with the words "Miranda," carved on the top, and with a plush purple interior. The Odd Fellows and Greenlaw Park donated $7,000 for her burial. Greenlaw undertaker Paula Meyses, said Miranda Eve's grave will be with the infants and children section of the cemetery. Elissa Davey is the director of Garden of Innocence, a charity based near San Diego that buries bodies of unidentified children.
My thanks to Steve Rubinstein, staff writer of the San Franscisco Chronicle.

     Aloha,
     Grant

Old Soldier

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            Old Soldier

Out walking this morning I saw him in the distance, slowly making his way towards me. As the distance closed between us, I called, "Good morning ,Jim." He dropped his hand from his walker, and we shook hands. The bones of his fingers were hard, but his grip was strong.

"How are you?, he asked." "Pretty good," I said."Me too," the ninety year old man replied. He is a small Japanese American with glasses and a ready smile. I have known him for more than ten years. I used to meet him at the end of  a bridge spanning the Ala Wai canal.  He was often doing a little dance for exercise. I would kid him about giving tourists some wrong directions, and mimic his dance. So now here he is, using a walker to make his way down the street for the fifty-nine cent cup of senior coffee at McDonald's.

"I lost a lot of buddies there." Recalling on this  Memorial Day weekend, his time fighting the Germans in Italy. "I remember you once told me that you were wounded in Italy." "Cassino." "There is another guy over there a block away, who was also there."

 I knew that  the struggle to capture Monte Cassino was one of the costliest battles of WWII. The Germans had blocked the Allies from liberating Rome. "Take care of yourself," he said as he pushed his walker away.

The bombing of this 1,400 year old monastery is one of the greatest aesthetic losses of WWII. And we now know that the bomber raid was due to a mistake in translation of a German radio message. A British junior officer mistook the German word for Abbot as meaning battalion. The message said "The abbot is with the monks in the monastery." The conclusion was that the Germans had a battalion of soldiers in the monastery. This was a clear violation of a an agreement with the Vatican that Monte Cassino was neutral. When a second translation was made, it was too late to call back the bombers.

The Germans took advantage of the rubble and in the fighting there were 185,000 casualties. And 250 men, women and children in the monastery itself.

Monte Cassino was restored in the 1950's and 60's. But you could never restore the building that was founded in 526 a.d. by St. Benedict. Warfare is very hard  on people and historic buildings.

       Aloha
       Grant