Nothing much more to say than that. We’re happy to be back in Hawaii, even though getting here seemed to involve even more annoying people and situations than usual.
At least the FAA computer glitch announced on the news just as we were getting ready to leave the house didn’t affect us at all.
More after a night of rest!
(NaBloPoMo | November ’09: 19 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 264 of 274)
I am not the history expert in our family. That would be my husband. Still, I was once a member of EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association, with an interest in military aircraft, particularly the Warbirds of the World War II era. So you know a story involving a long-lost warbird being recovered from the depths of Lake Michigan off Waukegan Harbor to eventually return to Hawaii would catch our interest.
SBD-2 Dauntless, February 1942 (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons by William T. Barr, photographer’s mate, USN)
The Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber raised from Lake Michigan on Friday, much like the one in the photo, is the second one recovered this year. Three hundred planes are estimated to be at the bottom of the lake. These planes were used for aircraft carrier qualification training. They flew out of the now-closed Glenview Naval Air Station and the aircraft carriers were at Navy Pier. Some of the training planes had been used in combat. This one had been at Pearl Harbor, and will end up there once again at the Pacific Aviation Museum on Ford Island in about three years.
So many interesting facts about the plane’s history and the people and organizations involved in the recovery are detailed by reporters from Honolulu and Lake County. Very cool for me to be able to read coverage from newspapers in both of my hometowns:
Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Crew to recover bomber with local ties from lake
We have not yet visited the Pacific Aviation Museum, and perhaps we will wait until this plane gets there to do so.
(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 20 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 147 of 274)
Ala Moana Center 2/3/09, originally uploaded by vomviersen.
I took this photo with my BlackBerry during my last trip to Honolulu.
I was at Ala Moana Shopping Center looking down at CenterStage from the mall level, and trying to get all three levels in the photo. When I was in high school, there was a fountain where we’d usually meet to go shopping. It would have been to the left of where I’m standing to take the photo, which was an open area back then. Neiman-Marcus is there now, I think. There was not a third level then, and certainly not a Louis Vuitton store.
I was kind of surprised to get the email asking to use the photo in the Schmap guide because it was almost a throwaway photo. The reason I took it was just to post to Twitter when @AlaMoanaCenter followed me!
(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 29 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 125 of 274)
I’ve already told you about my perfectly legitimate somewhat unnatural aversion to tilapia (insert choking noise as usual) because of their lowly place in the food chain during my formative years in Hawaii.
I have tried not to mention something else which is also clearly the fault of my Hawaii upbringing: Potagee (Portuguese) jokes. These are pretty much the same as Polish jokes where I live now, poking fun at the…. ermmm…. less intellectual nature… of the ethnic group. Not saying I agree with that characterization; that is just what I grew up with.
The fact that our also-Hawaiian-born President has picked a Portuguese Water Dog for a pet has got to be fodder for the biggest and best Potagee joke of all. I just can’t think what it would be, though. I am just not funny enough. A local breeder of Portuguese Water Dogs was interviewed for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s story about the Obama puppy:
She said if you own one in Hawaii, expect a lot of ribbing.
“You should hear the jokes I got. People would just make fun,” she said.
I just wonder what the jokes were, since I’m not funny enough to come up with one on my own!
My family grows old gracefully. Or at least, they live a long time. With very few exceptions, my relatives who have passed on were well into their 80s or even 90s when they left us.
I was born in 1958. My mom was 35 and my dad was 40 when I was born. That would be pretty normal now, but back then it was rather ancient to be having a first child. I do not have children myself. That is mostly by choice, and partly because I didn’t meet my husband until I was well into my 30s. I just did not see myself having a first child at the same age my mom did. My parents gave me a good childhood and it’s not because of any real or imagined traumatic experience making me say “well, I’ll never do that.”
The only unfortunate side effect of delaying their family is that now that they are getting up there in years (my parents are both still alive and very healthy and independent at 85 and 90), I’m still nowhere near enough to retirement age to easily pick up and go back to Hawaii where I can be close enough to be more helpful to them. Yes, I know, priorities and all of that. If they need me, I will find a way to get back there.
My dad has been part of a longevity study researching healthy Japanese-American men in Hawaii since 1965. I had no idea he was participating in this study until a couple of years ago. The study ran from 1965 to 2005, and the results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006. Dad was in a video segment produced to accompany the article, which aired during the health segment of many local news programs in the fall of 2006. The segment described the findings of the Hawaii Lifespan Study, identifying mid-life risk factors that would predict longevity. The findings: avoid smoking, avoid excessive drinking, maintain healthy blood pressure, and maintain a healthy weight. Having a good education and being married appeared to also contribute to longevity.
The press release accompanying the video was printed in the health briefs of many newspapers as well, including the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. You can still see it in their archives:
Showing men how to survive and thrive
The “88-year-old participant” mentioned in the article is my dad. The video is still live online in at least one place:
http://seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Aging/6-11-14-ResearchersLearn.htm
But somehow I missed another interesting piece of news related to the longevity study. Here is one of the many articles that I missed back in September 2008:
“Longevity Gene” Extends Human Life Span
Seems that they’ve identified a longevity gene. I wonder if my dad has this gene. I wonder if he knows whether or not he has it: did they let the study participants know? I wonder if my mom has it, too? Her side of the family has had some good long lifespans as well. If Dad has it, I might have it. I’m looking forward to following the developments on this.
If I’ve ever puzzled or offended you by the choking-back-a-laugh noise I usually make whenever someone mentions eating tilapia, please let me explain. I am generally a pretty logical person, but tilapia is one thing for which logic cannot prevail for me. I know that the tilapia sold at the warehouse store and supermarket, and served at fine restaurants (insert that choking noise here), is farm-raised. I know that its (reportedly) mild flavor is a perfect backdrop for some creative and sophisticated sauces. I also know that despite my general love of seafood, I will never eat tilapia (choking noise again).
When I was growing up in Honolulu, no one I know would ever have thought about eating tilapia. Tilapia lived in dirty canals like the Ala Moana Canals and Ala Wai Canal. They supposedly eat algae, but being bottom-feeders, that means they also sucked up the other disgusting stuff at the bottom of the canal. If you fished for tilapia, it was solely for fun, and you would throw them back in the filthy water from whence they came. In other words, not something that anyone would willingly put in their mouth.
I don’t remember exactly when tilapia made the move from the canals to the fish farms, but I do remember the great amount of amusement it gave me every time I heard of some upscale restaurant serving tilapia. The fancier the restaurant, the bigger the laugh for me, as I was of course picturing fancy schmancy people catching canal tilapia.
The height of my illogical amusement came when I saw an article in the Norridge/Harwood Heights local newspaper about an aquaculture project at my husband’s high school. Just a few miles from where we live now, the students there were raising… yes, you guessed it… tilapia! I got way too much pleasure at asking him whether he was disappointed that he had never been able to participate in a tilapia farming project during his years there.
So, yes. I know it’s totally illogical. But I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat tilapia, unless someone tricks me into trying it. Umm. Do not get any ideas, please and thank you. And thank you for ignoring that little choking noise I make when you mention how tasty your tilapia was at lunch!
Because I am old now, I don’t keep up with music the way I used to. In particular, I don’t keep up with music videos because I really don’t know when and where to watch them any more (except online, of course, which is sometimes difficult depending on the state of my connection and age of my computer at any given location). Sometimes I actually get nostalgic for a time when MTV played music videos most of the time and I could have it on as background noise instead of the radio.
So I had no idea that Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” video was filmed in Hawaii, or for that matter, anything at all about the video, until I saw the latest issue of Hawaii Magazine.
I love that song. The first time I heard it, I wondered which Hawaiian singer had something new out. It has the same feel as a lot of the contemporary Hawaiian music I like. I didn’t know of Mraz’s connection to Hawaii as a frequent visitor, but I would say he definitely “gets” what life there is about. Even though I’m not personally familiar with every one of the locations in the video (I haven’t visited Kauai since I was very young), it still feels like home to me.
(may contain profanity or non-p.c. content)
