1958 • Oahu ~ Claudia and Mom stayed in Hawaii for four months after I left, walking the beach, sightseeing, going to movies, swatting mosquitoes and smashing cockroaches. No matter how carefully my sister cleaned, how much she sprayed, or how many she nailed with a magazine—from tiny … [Read more...]
2.38 What Did I Know?
1958 • Honolulu ~ I remember a Friday afternoon soon after what happened with Bobby: a girl and I were playing the cigarette game on our way home from school, racing and keeping score of who stomped first on the empty packs of Kents, Kools, and Lucky Strikes flung from car windows and littering the … [Read more...]
2.37 Let. Me. Go.
April 1958 • Hawaii ~ I remember that Saturday afternoon. I don’t know where Mom and Claudia were, probably off to the commissary for groceries or cigarettes, so Bobby and I were alone in their apartment. He was propped up with pillows at the head of the bed. I sat on the bottom corner, … [Read more...]
2.36 I Remember Bobby
1958 • Honolulu, Hawaii ~ I have other memories of Hawaii. I remember Bobby. He was blonde, tan, and handsome, a Georgia cracker with a slow Southern drawl and a boyish, white-toothed smile, a swabbie in bell-bottoms of pressed blues or crisp whites. He was nineteen and in his third year in the … [Read more...]
2.35 With Open Arms 1958
1958 • Whittier, Southern Californa ~ On February 1, 1958, Betty married Tony Duchi, the handsome admirer she’d met at Kinney Shoes the prior summer. The first time she laid eyes on him she fell in love with this man who was her measure, who adored her, and who would protect … [Read more...]
2.34 Christmas Eve
1957 • Honolulu, Hawaii ~ I remember that Christmas Eve. I wanted us to have a tree, so I made it from a beautiful branch of dark wood I found near our house earlier that day. At each tip where its small thorns crooked out I stuck a sugared gumdrop, then carefully bow-tied the mid stems with colored … [Read more...]
2.33 Come Hell or High Water
Nov 29, 1957 • Honolulu ~ I remember the Friday afternoon the hurricane hit. I was walking home with a girl from school who’d invited me to her house, me doing a small skip alongside her, happy to have made a friend. I heard it before I saw it. I turned my face to the sky and felt the insistent air … [Read more...]
2.32 Worrisome Prayers
1957 • San Francisco ~ Letter from Aunt Elizabeth to her brother, my father: March 13, 1957 Dear Carl: Just now writing the date, I happened to remember that this is Carleen’s birthday. If it weren’t so late, I would call her. We are having Mass on Wednesday evenings during Lent and with a … [Read more...]
2.31 Needs Improvement
October 1957 • Honolulu, Hawaii ~ Once again I was in a new school. There were four other haoles (mostly the white children of Navy families from the States stationed in the area) in my class and the rest of the kids were locals of mixed heritage, Chinese, or Japanese descent. The locals … [Read more...]
2.30 Manoa Valley
1957 - 1958 • Honolulu, Hawaii ~ Mom and I settled in upper Manoa Valley, a trolley ride from Honolulu. A valley with a higher elevation than sun-drenched Waikiki, it squatted at the foot of a tropical rainforest shrouded in low rain clouds. When they passed, brilliant rainbows broke through, … [Read more...]
2.29 Off to Paradise 1957
October 1957 • San Jose to the Islands ~ A year and a month into Bobby and Claudia's marriage, Bobby was transferred to Barbers Point, a naval air station about 20 minutes from Honolulu. My mother got the notion that she and I would move there too. Mom wanted to be near Claudia, she and Ray had … [Read more...]