Loose Marble

We returned to Hawaii several times after that first trip.  Each trip having its own unique twist or dynamic.  We were there when the Brady Bunch filmed their famous Hawaii episodes and played in the waves and sand with the Brady kids behind the historic Royal Hawaiian.  We vacationed with my mom’s mother, sister and my cousin.  At least once we rented a green VW Thing and toured the island, jungles and mountains.  Visited Air Force friends of my parents and my sister and I stayed the night with them and learned about Man O War jelly fish when we had to forego a dip in the ocean.  We stayed on Kauai and Maui and I stupidly passed on one trip to stay home to attend a summer high school class, then stupidly again several years later cut a trip short to return to my college girlfriend.  My last trip to Hawaii was June 1999.   It was my father’s last flight as a commercial pilot.   He was based in Honolulu and was a Captain on the 747.      At that time commercial pilots had to retire wh

By this point in my life I’d flown enough to have seen the world through a wider lens than afforded on a car trip.  I’d seen the tree tops, fields and mountains from an airplane window, but flying to an island, looking out the window and seeing effectively what looked like nothing was an eye opening experience.  Water is pretty featureless from 35,000 feet.  Just black as far in all directions as you can see.  It really drove home the reality of how huge the ocean is, and the world by extension and how small we are in comparison.  There is a lot to see out there and I was seeing a small bit of it for the first time. After five hours of the featureless, blackness our destination appeared as a disruption to the nothingness on the horizon.  The earth started to poke its rocky, tree covered dermis forth from the water.  The black water started to turn to dark blue giving away to ever lighter hues of blue.  The outline of the land looked like the piping of a sofa cushion in a contrasting

My mother reached down, straightened my tie and told me to go on outside and wait by the car. My sister soon joined me, dressed in a typical 1970’s plaid dress, knee socks and black buckle shoes. The sun had just started to rise on this late summer day in the suburbs of Washington, DC.  Me being all of six years old and my four year old sister, dressed to the nines standing in the driveway next to the family’s light blue Volkswagen Beetle must have been a sight of curiosity for the neighbor out walking his dog before leaving for work.  He must have known, although we were in our Sunday best, church was not our destination. Soon our mother appeared dressed in the latest seasonal fashion and in keeping with mine and my sister’s attire.  She pushed the storm door open and stepped to the side of the small concrete stoop to hold the door open for our father to emerge.  He was in a brownish suit with a perfectly coordinated tie that was classic seventies, ironing board wide.  Turning a