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From Flint to Flame

Travel, Music and Other Shiny Things....

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Archives for January 2018

Hawaii – The Flint is Struck

January 21, 2018 By Mark Chatham 6 Comments

How I Look when Faced with a Tough Choice

The Spark

In May 2012 we’d come into a modest amount of money. With our 33rd wedding anniversary coming up, my wife Joanne thought that perhaps this would be a good time for a bona-fide honeymoon. I don’t need a gun to my head to make a whimsical and frivolous decision, especially if it looks like it could be unproductive and costly so I immediately agreed. But where to go? Well, we had nine months to come to a decision.

Initially, we thought Europe would be fun but the 2012 Olympics were being held in London that summer and I’m almost positive we could have obtained a Faberge egg cheaper than traveling Europe. We looked at “all inclusives” in the Caribbean, but one could laze at home and buy enough food and booze with that kind of cash to feed the cast of Return of the King (Orcs included) if all one has a desire to do is lay around and eat and drink like you’re on vacation or something. Joanne suggested Hawaii as she had been there on a school trip in her youth and had always wanted to return.

“No way,” says I. “Airfare alone will be like, $4000 CAD return for the two of us.”

Why, our combined airfare could buy 12% of a Super Bowl ticket! However, when I checked, our combined return airfare would only be $2006 CAD which was somewhat bemusing given we would be flying almost halfway around the planet Earth. Ours is not to question why, ours is but to cheaply fly. Hawaii it would be.

So we would leave on the the 25th of September and return the 14th of October 2012. Alas, too early for the Ultraman revolution.

 

The Ultraman Unit of the Hawaiian National Guard train to defend against the deadly Kaiju.

Scotty Adds his  $0.02 USD

A good friend of mine named Scott had lived in Oahu for a year and a half during his wayward youth and he offered sound advice in respect to a trip to Hawaii.

“Given the distance, go for more than a week and make sure you visit more than one island,” Scott advised.

This was only the first splash of sound wisdom as Scott proved to be a fountain of invaluable and practical information. So we decided on a three week sojourn with a week on North Shore of Oahu, a week on the Big Island (Hawaii) in Pahoa, near Hilo and five days in Waikiki on Oahu.

I’d seen Joanne’s photos from her school trip trip to Waikiki. Hawaii is always pitched as paradise. These photos depicted Hawaii as Steve McGarretland, circa 1975. Watching the new series you realize calling Waikiki a tourist Mecca is a complete understatement; it makes New York City feel like Mount Everest base camp in the off season. Actually… I think I narrowly missed an encounter with yak dung once in Central Park. To give a stronger sense of how touristy the former swamp of Waikiki is, there are 200 hotels in Oahu. 198 of them are in Waikiki with the other two being Ko’Olina on the west coast and Turtle Bay on the North Shore.

Overall, we like to experience more local color so off the top we decided on five nights in Waikiki and two weeks elsewhere. In keeping with that thought, I thought the North Shore would have more local flavor. Unfortunately, big wave season doesn’t begin until November and we’d be leaving prior to the start, but given our experience it still should be impressive and Jo agreed.  The Big Island was my initiative. I told Joanne I wasn’t going to go all that way and pass up the opportunity to see an active volcano. Now the question became, where to stay?

 

There’s where I want to stay! Right there! It’s very green!

Spending Philosophies

We decided to turn to Homeaway.com (Formerly VRBO.com) as hotels seemed pricey on first inspection and Homeway offers more flexibility in respect to price. I appreciate the great variety of user friendly filters. Even if you have a medical condition that compels you to live in a castle, and host lavish balls you no longer need be bound to a single fortified structure! You can hop on a packet schooner and head to Europe!

Mind you, depending on your requirements you won’t always find what you want. Dwight D. Eisenhower would in all probability be pressed finding a 39,000 bedroom/9750 bathroom place in the Normandy region to house 156,000 troops… mostly because most of them are smokers and Homeaway didn’t exist in 1941. However, the broader your parameters, the more likely your success. Our parameters were pretty broad so every single night for months, Joanne and I would be searching the site from early evening until well past midnight looking for places to stay. It was exciting!

Joanne and I are yin and yang, opposites in so many ways. Spending is one of them. She’s a value chick when it comes to spending money, the queen of sales. I’m like Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond in Rainman in respect to my sense of cost:

Doctor: Ray, do you know how much a candy bar costs?
Raymond: ‘Bout a hundred dollars.
Doctor: Do you know how much one of those new compact cars costs?
Raymond: ‘Bout a hundred dollars.

That being said I’m generally giving more weight to the intrinsic value of any given product rather than the price. That’s my story and I’m holding to it.

Living Quarters

There was a lot of back and forth between value and price point, but for the first week the North Shore we settled on what seemed to be a luxurious house which had a waterfall swimming pool, a hot tub, four bedrooms/two baths located on the ridge overlooking Sunset Beach in Pupakea. We couldn’t actually see the beach and the view of the ocean was limited. Kind of like weather stripping between the foliage and the sky.  No matter, it had a baby grand piano, a pool and fruit trees on the extensive grounds and it looked like paradise

 

If I owned this place I’d have a couple of fake velociraptors peeking out from the foliage

Given the size of the house, we decided to invite our four adult children to stay with us for the first week. I told them all they needed was airfare and spending money; I’d be renting a car and paying for the house. Kristiane, our eldest  and Michelle, our youngest, eventually took us up on our offer and made their arrangements. Our two boys declined for a variety of reasons. So one place down, two to go.

On to the “Big Island” of Hawaii. We decided to stay in Pahoa on the western side of the island when we found a house with a pool and ocean frontage. It wasn’t far from Hilo, the second largest city on the island and it was about 15 minutes away from Kilaueau, a very active volcano. It’s so active that two years later in 2014, then again in 2018, Pahoa was at risk of being buried under fresh lava flows.

So with house number two settled, there was only Waikiki left. We looked and waffled and one evening when I bedded down early for a day shift, Joanne woke me up very excited about a place she’d found. I took a look at the pictures and thought she’d accidentally blundered into the palace at Versailles (I dunno. Versailles may list on Homeaway for all I knew), but no, she’d found a beautiful condo at the Royal Garden in Waikiki. You can’t rent a broom closet in Waikiki for $125 a night, so this was golden. All we needed now was ground transport.

 

I believe the Treaty of Utrecht was signed on this table

Off to Hotwire to rent cars! I thought a convertible for the first week on the north shore would be perfect, so I rented a Mustang thinking we’d just be the coolest tooling around in that baby. My buddy Scott then informed me that this was the tropics and maybe a convertible wouldn’t be such a good idea. Apparently the locals call them “fry cars.” As I’m essentially bald, there was a strong possibility that after a few days in a convertible the top of my head might provide a distraction for anyone hoping to enjoy a Hawaiian sunset thinking that maybe they’d somehow been beamed to a planet with a double sun. I still didn’t care. I was renting that convertible.

For the big Island, we rented a generic… car on the cheap. For Waikiki it didn’t matter but parking is a problem so we bought trolley tickets which would get us everywhere we wanted to go and the Waikiki trolley proved to be a marvelous idea.

So everything was arranged and we were ready to roll. As time grew short, we grew more excited until September 25th arrived and we were off to Hawaii!!!!! At 0430! In the morning. It would be 22 hours before we’d arrive in Honolulu and another five before I’d sleep again.  Good thing I used to be a shift worker.

Next time on TTWTH: Pupakea First Impressions: Sunrise

 

Filed Under: Hawaii, The Flint - Planning

Dillingham Airfield and As-soar-ted activities.

January 13, 2018 By Mark Chatham 1 Comment

A Soar Spot

We finished our breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, muffins and fruit. It was a pretty solid breakfast, but you couldn’t get much further from traditional “Hawaiian” fare unless you were eating muesli, kippered herring with maybe a borsch slushy on the side. After breakfast, the girls wanted to go for a dip in the pool and I wanted to go for a drive. I’d booked a glider flight with Honolulu Soaring for 10 a.m. at Dillingham airfield which was 15 miles away on the northern tip of the island. I’d pitched the idea to the ladies but none of them felt that adventurous so I thought I’d check out the North Shore in the early light of morn enroute to the airfield. It was 80 degrees and sunny with a hint of a breeze. I rolled the top down on the Mustang and headed out.

 

For some reason you never see “snails as big as your head” used prominently in tourist ads for Hawaii
 

As-soar-ted Sites on a Morning Drive

The house was perched on Pupukea ridge and once outside the residential area, Pupukea Drive turned into an audacious switchback that sliced its way down the almost vertical 350 foot drop from the ridge to the base of the cliff. After that it was a gentle incline to Foodland. I was too intent in trying to stay on the road rather than rubberneck and risk taking a more vertical path in rolling the car down the hillside.  Aside from catching glances of the Pacific on my left and dense, verdant vegetation on both sides, what stood out in my mind was the “falling rocks” sign I’d passed at the top of the ridge. The switchback had an incredibly sharp turn that would have challenged a unicycle before the grade once again became kinder. I made it to the intersection next to Foodland without the acquaintance of igneous rock to my noggin from above. I took a left on to the Kamehameha Highway (henceforth referred to as the Kam Highway. It’s not that I’m too lazy to add the extra letters, it’s just easier to read. Okay… it’s also because I am too lazy to add the extra letters.).

It was literally night and day in comparison from our drive the night before and the view under Earth’s yellow sun was spectacular. Associating the word “highway” with the Kamehameha is akin to calling Hunter River, Prince Edward Island a burgeoning metropolis. It’s not going to “burgeon” much beyond its current population of 300 or so and with that fact the “metropolis” part becomes self-explanatory. The Kam Highway is a cramped, two lane road encroached upon by vegetation, fences and… well, of course chickens. When the words “Kamehameha” and “Highway” collide in the same sentence it becomes an existential paradox given my experience of highways. That being said, it’s also one of the most beautiful drives in respect to scenery I’ve ever encountered. However, be prepared. When traffic is heavy during big wave season, you get to look at that scenery for a very, very long time from a whole lot of different perspectives as you move 12 feet, then stop for 12 minutes. Not much traffic this morning though.

 

If you pass Eric Arakawa’s surf shop on the way to Dillingham you haven’t gone far enough yet. You’re also on the wrong road.

Initially, I only caught glimpses of the Pacific Ocean through the thick greenery, gigantic ferns and the treeline of palm and other deciduous varieties of tree. That changed when the highway took a sharp left and Waimea Bay exploded into view. I’d seen pictures of Hawaii and always thought they’d been airbrushed to make the colors more vivid. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The bay itself was a bold, rich turquoise and this provided a harmonious counterpoint to the brilliant buttery yellow of the sun-drenched sand of the beach itself. For me, it was hypnotic and when the sun was shining it drew my eyes every time I passed that week. While I didn’t go off the road, I was drawn to rubberneck the view like a leashed dog passing a hydrant. I’ve yet to see a picture that captures that vivid contrast.

 

That’s actually a tree overhanging and not the smoke monster from “Lost”
 

 

As Waimea fell behind the vegetation grew sparse for large stretches on the seaward side and I could see the breaking whitecaps of the Pacific surf rolling in. In the distance, the Waianae Range shimmered golden green in the early morning light, cut with deep shadows by the vertical couloirs breaking up the symmetry of the range; wrinkles in its primordial face. It wasn’t long before I arrived at Haleiwa Town, which is the focal point for the Mecca of surf that is the North Shore of Oahu.

Haleiwa Town

I made the turn into Haleiwa and passed a rather large park on the ocean side in which palm trees lined the sea wall like street lights. I could see the harbour and marinas a short distance across the water.  Passing a couple of surf shops I then crossed the Rainbow Bridge spanning the Anahula River. It was postcard picturesque but it left me wondering if the word “rainbow” had a different definition in Hawaii. I would have named it “White Bridge Yellowed with Age” which admittedly, isn’t nearly as sexy and maybe a tad too literal.

 

Because I didn’t get a picture and it’s the right color, the role of Rainbow Bridge in Haleiwawill be played by the Eiffel Tower in Paris as seen from inside the funicular on the way up.

Haleiwa has one main road, and immediately after crossing the bridge I arrived at its one main intersection. I was now in downtown Haleiwa. There was a 76 gas station beside which is parked the Blue Water Shrimp truck. Food trucks are everywhere on the North Shore and apparently it’s mandatory to patronize one while visiting… but not for breakfast so I continued on my journey. Along the main strip are a number of colorful shops, some restaurants, a couple of strip malls and within three minutes, I was through Haleiwa and continued on to Dillingham.

Skirting Waialua via the Farrington Highway — which in terms of North Shore highways is as substantial as the Kam Highway – there were fields, mountains and trees on my left, fields and ocean on my right. Parachutes blossomed in the sky ahead. I hoped they weren’t jumping from gliders which had sub-standard maintenance. Fortunately, it turns out Dillingham airfield is shared by Honolulu Soaring and a number of skydiving companies. I parked the car and headed in to the office.

The North Shore from Above

I’d booked a 30 minute sight-seeing tour as I was over the 205 pound weight limit for the acrobatic flight. For some reason they’re apprehensive about flying 360 degree loops with the equivalent of a human refrigerator aboard the plane. Go figure. I had been up in gliders a few times in the past and it’s a gloriously pure flight experience so I was pretty excited.

 

Preparing to board, no airstairs necessary. Part of my preparations for posting this photoshould have been to pixelate my torso to protect the identities of past meals.

It was mostly overcast by the time I boarded the plane, but still a balmy 80 F. My pilot was Big Don and at 6’5” I felt the nickname was appropriate. Unfortunately for me, his size mandated the front seat so I was in the less roomy and somewhat more visually restricted rear seat which would make video recording less than optimal. The glare on the canopy in the interior didn’t help much either. The tow plane raced down the runway and with a jerk we were on our way up to 2000 feet at which point Don released the towline and we were catching thermals, warm currents of air pushed up by the Waianae Mountains.

The mountains of Oahu are different than any I’d ever seen. They looked ancient and oddly unstable. They appeared to be comprised of pale greyish, ochre coloured stone and the mountainside was covered in patchy scrub and stunted trees. Very Planet of the Apes. Very Flintstones. They appeared frangible and crumbly. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover “Waianae” is Polynesian for “dried road apple.” We bumped upwards with each thermal updraft as we hugged the side of the Waianae mountains until we reached 3,000 feet, or “angels three” as it might be called in B grade WWII flick. I could make out walking trails up the side of the mountain and could see individual hikers as we blew by them.

Below stretched the airfield and there were huge ponds nearby which were obviously artificial. When I asked Don about them “shrimp farms,” was his response. White fingers of froth smeared across the aquamarine water close to shore, blemished with patchy deep blue shadows from coral formations. The surf break appeared frozen like a frosty rime on blue stained glass from that height. Further out the colors bled into a rich cobalt blue. The only sound aside from our conversation was the wind rushing by the canopy.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Gliding over Dillingham Airfield on the North Shore – The Movie

 

BIg Don was very accommodating when I asked if we could do some hammerhead turn stalls after we leveled off at 3000 feet or so. He’d pitch the nose up and bleed off airspeed until we stopped moving and were hanging frozen in the air for a split second. In that moment, the five point harness bit into my shoulders as we experienced negative four g’s but what was really striking was the absolute, barren silence without even the sound of the wind. It’s somewhat unnerving coming out of a stall because suddenly the plane slides backwards for a moment, until Don yaws the craft on its axis until he’s pointed the nose straight at the ground then banked on the wingtip to reverse direction. At the bottom of the dive and we were pulling 6 g’s. It wasn’t my first experience with this maneuver so no change of underwear was required. We leveled off at around 2,000 feet, got back to the mountainside and rode the thermal escalator back up again.

We spent the next half hour climbing, stalling, and whipping around and all too soon we were lining up the runway for the approach. Swooping down, there was the tiniest of bumps and it was over. For me, gliding is the most exhilarating roller coast ride I’ve ever experienced.

We deplaned and then there was post flight euphoria where one exults over the experience… but you don’t want to exult too hard. One must always be conscious of the exultation principle whereby the correlation between expectation of the sum of the tip increases proportionally to the amount of enthusiasm demonstrated by the client. So I feigned indifference and left. I’m kidding! I always tip well… although from Don’s reaction I think I over-tipped. No matter, it was worth it to me. I climbed back into the Mustang and headed home for lunch. Joanne and I had surfing lessons booked for the afternoon and I was ready and raring to go.

Next time on TTWTH: Haleiwa Surfing Lessons or “Surfer Down” in my case

Previously on TTWTH: Pupakea First Impressions: Sunrise

Filed Under: Oahu North Shore

Pupakea First Impressions: Sunrise

January 13, 2018 By Mark Chatham 4 Comments

First Impressions: Sunrise

 

It was 5 a.m. when I woke up, realized I was in Hawaii and hopped out of bed. I don’t “hop” out of bed. Ever. I slackly undulate my way out of bed once I’m somewhat semi-conscious. I’m the antithesis of the “morning person.” However, it was my first chance to explore after the trials of arrival the night before and I was excited so I made an exception.

Joanne and the girls were still asleep. This was unsurprising as we’d arrived at our rented house in Pupukea on the North Shore of Oahu at midnight after slogging through 20 hours of air travel. You’d think we would have arrived earlier than midnight given the fact this was my second trip to the house that night. We should have been in at 5:30 p.m. but my two daughters, Kristiane and Michelle’s connecting flights were delayed four hours, so we had to wait.

 

This is the house? Did we overshoot and end up in Indonesia? How long was I asleep?

Rough Arrival

When the girls were delayed, we realized there was no way we could get the four of us and our luggage in the little red Mustang rental, so while Joanne stayed at the airport to wait I thought I’d take our luggage to Pupukea and be back in short order. How hard could it be to find my way around? Oahu is teeny tiny! Of course, with almost a million people we’re talking significant infrastructure in respect to the road system. I got lost immediately and ended up at Hickam airfield. I headed back to the airport to puzzle out the route. I had hit a six on the stupid scale.

There are three interstates on Oahu… which is anomalous in itself. It’s in the middle of the Pacific so it doesn’t “inter” with ANY state. Looks easy on first glimpse at a map. No matter, I rolled with it and started from scratch. This time I studied the map like I was a med student studying for an anatomy final. Last minute cramming. The H1 bone’s connected to the H2 bone. The H2 bone’s connected to the Kamehameha bone and so forth. You’ll have to trust me on this, but you might want to check out the Hawaii Department of Transport’s (HIDOT) site for construction before you visit if you’re going to be driving.

 

 

Road construction work on the H2 outside of Wahiawa
 
Throughout this little escapade I had hit eight on the stress scale and was so intent on finding my way around I couldn’t really appreciate my environment with three exceptions. The first was immediately after disembarking the plane and feeling the warmth and humidity. This was late September and when we left Halifax the temperature was 10C (53F), the temperature in Haleiwa was 26C (82F) so we’d doubled down on temperature. YEAH!

The second thing I noticed was this terminal wasn’t entirely closed. Connecting sections of the airport were huge breezeways, which had a roof but no walls of which to speak. This was the first time in my life I’d seen the open concept taken to this extreme, but then this was my first trip to the tropics. I would find it just as jarring later on to discover hotels that had massive stretches with no walls at lobby level in Waikiki.

 

I wonder if the  open air lobby concept is a safety feature that allows hotel clerks and concierges to spot incoming tsunamis much earlier. If you don’t see staff in the lobby, seek high ground. Fast.

 

Lastly, the floral and exotic aroma of plumeria which infused the air despite the fact I was at a major airport. This was heady stuff; in my experience outdoor air just doesn’t normally smell this good… unless it’s just rained and I’m not near a salt marsh or a swamp. It was dark when I left and once outside of Honolulu my world was to what I could see in the headlights, which was the Kamehameha Highway which isn’t particularly well lit. From Waihewa mid-island, it’s a narrow, two lane highway that bisects the island and wraps around the North Shore and eastern side of the island. However, I could have been driving anywhere except for that ever present floral balm as a constant reminder of of fact I was in an exotic, foreign place. I finally arrived at our residence, dropped the bags then left with just a glance at the interior as I was running late. The glance was promising, the interior looked great and my excitement escalated.

 

The view driving along the Kamehameha Highway at night during a new moon was magnificent!
 

 

Rushing back to the airport I picked up the girls then started back only to run into a major traffic snarl on the H2 due to construction. Still… we were in Hawaii and everyone was excited so I rolled down the top so everyone could take in that sweet aroma. This was the signal for the Hawaiian goddess Lono to open up the skies and douse us with rain. Well… it was more drizzle really, so we rolled the top back up which was her signal to stop the rain. Once we found the house I found the bedroom and was finished. I was a rogue elephant and the pillow proved to have the tranquilizing effect of dart dripping with a double dose of phenobarbital. It was just after midnight and it had taken two and a half hours to get here.

57% of a Full Night’s Sleep Later

The next morning when I awoke that fragrant scent reminded me where we were. It was still too dark to check out the grounds, but as I made my way to the lanai (balcony) I was impressed with what I was seeing. A baby grand piano greeted me at the bottom of the stairs in the living room of the ground floor. It was airy and spacious with large picture windows overlooking the grounds. I padded through the French doors into the darkness on the lanai.

 

Kristiane marvels… at something. Probably me about to descend the staircase like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille!”

 

 

The satin grey of the pre-dawn sky provided a backdrop for the silhouette of palm trees in the huge back yard. It had rained during the night and I inhaled the blossomy scent, appreciated my surroundings and enjoyed the moment. While I couldn’t see the ocean, I could hear it off in the distance. It felt unreal, it felt exotic… then a rooster crowed. What the??? Was there a poultry farm nearby? Then it crowed again and was answered by roosters elsewhere providing counterpoint and further adding to my confusion. More farms? I’d always thought Hawaii was known for pineapples, not poultry. Huh.

Something Fowl Afoot

It was almost 6 a.m. and the sun was rising so I put the top down and drove to the grocery store at the bottom of the hill to pick up some supplies and the fixings for a fine breakfast for the girls when they awoke. What proved to be a bit of a challenge was avoiding running over roosters and hens wandering loose around the Foodland parking lot. Someone must have left a gate open somewhere at the poultry penitentiary and they were making a bid for freedom.

I didn’t have a mallet with me, so I headed in to the store to buy breakfast components. Inside I learned that Hawaii has a feral chicken problem. Loose poultry is a common site on the islands. I found prices at Foodland comparable to prices at home. Produce tended to be cheaper, meat a bit more expensive but it wasn’t as expensive as I’d been led to believe, what, with all these free range chickens wandering around.

 

There’s a question here and I can’t for the life of me remember the answer.
 

 

Despite the fact that tasks I was performing were familiar, there was just enough “off” from my typical shopping experience at home that it felt somewhat alien. It’s strange to find such a large selection of items in such a small grocery store. As a Canadian, it’s strange to find an an entire deli case was devoted to a local delicacy which consisted of a varieties of raw fish called “poke,” or that half an aisle was dedicated to Spam. I rolled up to the cash, paid, and rolled out to the car.

 

 

Our local grocery store doesn’t have this many flavors of ice cream, for Pete’s sake!

Sweet Surroundings

By the time I got to the house, the girls were up and exploring the house and grounds. Coconut palms, banana, mango, papayas and lime trees surrounded the pool area in the lush back yard. If we ran out of grocery money, we’d at least be set up for fruit salad. In the morning light the place was even more impressive with the view from those huge picture windows. They were filled with a “green scale” of color from the light green of the sunlit lawn to the deep hunter green of vegetation in the shade. The pool was barely visible from the lanai, so I headed down to check it out.

 

The backyard. Don’t know if that’s a chicken in the foreground…
 

The pool area was everything for which I’d hoped. I switched on the waterfall and it had a “grotto” effect. Just looking at it I felt like a much shorter Hugh Hefner minus the house coat, pipe, money, bunnies and publishing empire. The pool was a good size, kidney shaped, although that’s assuming that somewhere there are kidneys shaped like mutant turquoise peanuts. There was a hot tub that would seat six, a Balinese lounging gazebo and a similar style bar area with a thatched roof. Life felt good in that moment.

 

I’m not sure what Michelle is reading. Maybe the operating manual for the Balinese lounging gazebo…
 

Sadly, it wouldn’t feel so good that evening, when I realized that the pool lights were all burned out and the tiki torches had no “tiki.” Another problem that subsequently surfaced was the bar area by the pool was filthy. The girls spent a good amount of time cleaning out cobwebs and assorted detritus from the drawers of the bar area. The seal on fridge freezer was broken, which proved to be a problem. We were not impressed given the price we paid. The pool lights were most disappointing for me. I had been rather looking forward to relaxing in the evenings by the pool. If only I’d packed Navy SEAL night vision goggles.

 

With dead tiki torches and the pool lights burned out, I prepare to enjoy the pool at night.

I headed back up to the house and cooked breakfast for all. I had booked a glider flight for 10 a.m. at Dillingham airfield and that afternoon Joanne and I were going for surfing lessons with North Shore Surf Girls. We drank in our surroundings and enjoyed bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, muffins and fresh fruit and I was feeling a building excitement for the busy day ahead.

 

 

 

Next time on TTWTH: Dillingham Airfield and As-Soar-ted Activities
Previously on TTWTH: Hawaii: The Flint is Struck

 

Filed Under: Oahu North Shore

Prologue

January 13, 2018 By Mark Chatham 1 Comment

Ozwiecim/Auschwitz Sep 14 2017

 

 

On the evening of September 13, 2017, Joanne and I arrived at the Oswiecim (Ahz-wee-cheem) train terminal and it looked very much as I would have imagined a train terminal in Poland would look in the 70’s under Communist rule.

The trip to Auschwitz was unplanned, a travel decision made on the fly. We had a global Eurail pass so we had unlimited travel, but extreme time limitations. We were boarding the “Nightjet” sleeper train in Zurich bound for Vienna with a 16 hour wait to connect for Munich and decided that as Auschwitz was four hours from Vienna by train, we’d make the trip and shift our itinerary.

I try to make my travel posts entertaining and funny. While I like to goof because frankly, it’s more fun and more positive than being a crank, the trip to Europe had been an unexpected roller coaster spiritual journey, with both light and dark moments. Living with 4th stage prostate cancer has changed me, it’s inevitable. I’m always on multiple journeys in multiple media, artistic, physical or spiritual. I like to learn stuff.

So in all candor, given the nature of the trip to Europe thus far, I felt moved to see Auschwitz and Joanne felt it as well. The unexpected change provided a dark epiphany almost immediately.

We arrived at Vienna Central Station at 7 a.m. Joanne left to forage for food and I was sitting alone guarding the bags when it hit me. We were taking the train to Auschwitz. We quite possibly would be riding the same rails but in comfort rather than being packed into cattle cars. When the magnitude of what riding a train to Auschwitz meant in the early 1940’s, I just broke down and wept as quietly as I could in my uncrowded corner of the terminal.

The experience of visiting Auschwitz haunts me. After leaving, the kernel of an idea came to mind and so this page is my way of taking the lessons of history to inform the present. I feel compelled to speak.

I’m not proud of my generation. We’re leaving behind a bleak legacy and I’m accountable as part of that group. Technological advance has exploded and outpaces our arc of social maturity as a species, hampering our ability to comprehend, never mind cope with the ramifications and eventual consequences.

Given the current state of affairs in the world, I am legitimately afraid for my children and grand-critters. I’ve watched the erosion of tolerance and dialogue over time in North America until it has degenerated into a cacophony of shrill and bitter sniping from the left and right equally and now it’s all white noise.

I see no moral high ground, I see no true dialogue. I see embers of righteous anger being fanned into flames of hatred by the media because it sells. Frankly, I truly believe that left/right antagonism is absurd noise because we all want the same thing.

To live a decent and happy life and for our children to thrive. We may have different ways of achieving that goal, but I think that pretty much sums up the way of things.

Next time you feel angry and the need to vilify someone who disagrees with you, try to bear this in mind because it’s an essential truth.

There is no left/right, rich/poor, black/white, man/woman Muslim/Christian/Jew/etc.

There are only people. Homo sapiens, you and me.

Us.

What follows illustrates what potentially happens when reason is muted by the noise of emotion.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Auschwitz

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