Remember
when...?
You could
buy one big sack of See Moi for a nickel...and then you ate the whole thing and
licked the bag...
Windward
side taro patches ,rice paddies, water buffalo...
When you
mentioned Kaneohe, everyone knew you were talking about the pupule house...
When the tallest
building in Honolulu was the Aloha Tower...
Radio
personalities like...J. Aku Head Pupule on KGMB in the mornings saying "OK
- all you SLOBS, it's time to GET UP!!!"
When you
lived in Honolulu, T.H. ...
Signs on
vacant and private property that said KAPU...
When
the site of Ala Moana Shopping Center was a big swamp...
When
Waialae-Kahala was mostly pig farms...And the area next to the airport was a
neighborhood called Damon Tract...
Grade
school JPO's (Junior Police Officers) in their white shirts, khaki pants,
polished black shoes, red helmets and arm bands...
25 cents going
Saturday Matinee, Queen's
Theater...
Wearing
Band-Aids and a "limp" to get into the Saturday matinee without
shoes...
Summer days of
swimming in Nuuanu Stream in Kapena Pond behind the Royal Mausoleum...
Flipping
milk caps on the sidewalk during recess, and deciding who got to go first by
playing Jon Kanna Po...
And when you did
something dumb everybody yelled, "Bakatade You!"...
And
when you did something naughty they shook their finger and said..."Ahana
koko lele!"...
Moonlight
swimming...Bonfires on the beach...Strumming ukuleles, singing and everyone knew
the words to all the old Hawaiian songs...
You
were greeted with, "Ei, bu!...Ei buggah, how you stay?...or Ei, blah-lah"...
Going
to Mauna kea Street to buy ginger leis...
The old
Pali road with the hairpin turns, and if it was really windy, the hood of the
car blew open...
A
big billboard picture on Kapiolani Ave. of P. Y. Chong saying, "Me P.Y.
Chong" advertising his restaurant... The bestest freshest poi at Ono's on
Kapahulu Ave..
Also bestest
Laulau, Kalua Pig, Opihi, sticky rice, Lomi Salmon, Pipikaula, Naau Puaa,
Haupia...Broke da mout'!...
Dollar
bills with HAWAII printed across them...
When
the Honolulu Stadium was called the termite palace...Guys getting their kicks
spahking the wahines from under the stands...soggy bags of boiled peanuts sold
by squatting sellers...
Football
players smothered with leis and lipstick walking off the field...
Hanging
out at Charlie's Tavern after the football game...
Drinking
beer and eating pupus at Kuhio Grill on King Street...
Harry
Bridges, teamster union leader, calling union dock strikes, causing food
shortages...
Sad
Sam Ichinose...
Kau
Kau Korner, the meeting place with the "Crossroads of the Pacific"
sign out front, the most photographed sign in the world...The waitresses wearing
short skirts, soda hats and skates bringing your order to the car on a window
tray...How good those hamburgers smelled!...
"Aloha
Oe...eat fish and poi"... Two-crust coconut pie...
"The
Melting Pot of the World"..."The Paradise of the Pacific"...
When those
lucky people who lived in Waikiki sold their lots for $5 a square foot and
we all thought they were getting rich...
When
fishermen sat on long-legged chairs in the middle of the Ala Wai Canal...
Everyone
discussing the "Mauka Arterial" and when it was finally completed w
all got lost because we didn't know East from West...
Holding the 49th
State Fair year after year...and finally becoming the 50th state in 1959...
Looking at
Diamond Head...when all you could see from Waikiki was the Natatorium and the
Elk's Club...
Old
Chinese ladies with bound feet shuffling along wearing dark grey tunics and
trousers...
Japanese
men in Kimonos carrying a towel and a bar of soap walking to a stream in the
evening...Filipino men from Waipahu on the bus with their game cocks in cages...
Elderly
Japanese squatting, waiting for the bus... Trying to find the coins wrapped in
red paper and pieces of tissue (with holes in them that the evil spirits had to
go through)...from Chinese funerals...
Watching
Duke Kahanamoku surfing at Waikiki and shaking hands with him as he greeted us
afterwards on the beach... Beach boys with da kine, ho'omalimali and Hawaiian
music under the palm trees at the Royal Hawaiian and the Moana...
Surfers
with 8 foot boards that weighed a ton... Waikiki sand always washing away and
having to be replaced by sand from the windward side...Old Chinese men playing
mah-jongg under the hau trees at Kuhio Beach...
Saint
Louis boys singing "We get ten tousand men steel yet, we gonna ween dees
game you bet"...
Rubbing
maunaloa seeds on the sidewalk until they got hot enough to burn
somebody's arm...
The
excitement of the big ship coming in, and being really sad when it was leaving,
even if you didn't know anybody aboard...Lei sellers
everywhere..."Carnation lei...fifty cents, plumeria.....three for dollah"..
Local boys diving for coins...big beautiful jelly fish...a tangle of
streamers from ship to shore...passengers tossing leis overboard as the ship
pulls away...if they floated toward shore, they would return...the lucky people
that got to go on the pilot boat when it went out early in the morning to meet
the Matson ships...
When KGMB
and KGU were the only radio stations...
Lots of
Myna birds o nthe sidewalks...mongoose living in a neighborhood tree... Going
Palilookout to "spahk da moon"..."I took my wahine holo holo kaa,
I took her up the Pali, she say "too muchee faa", Pull down the shade,
try to make the grade...Lei ana ika...black eye!"...
Going
Diamond Head to watch the submarine races... Swimming in the streams and
whacking each other on the head with shampoo ginger...Never driving over
the Pali with pork in your car...you going get stuck...
Going
to "First Vue" at the Waikiki theater...eating crackseed...the palm
trees and flowers that looked so real....the usher who wore a feather cape and
helmet and never smiled... Talking mynabirds...
Lightsout...clack,
clack, clack...what's dat?...turn on lights...one Beeg centipede!...
Alfred
Apaka...Kalima Brothers...Gabby Pahinui...slack key... steel guitars...
Keeping
the lei he gave you in your room until your mother got mad about the bugs it
attracted...
Hollow
surfboards...fiberglass surf boards... Surfing at Waikiki and watching the
outrigger canoes along side of you full of mainland tourists wearing bathing
caps...getting swamped...
Surfing
Waikiki all day without eating, getting red eyes...going back again the next
day...because when you caught those waves and rode them all the way in...it was
worth it!...
Underwater...trying
to catch a ride on the back of a turtle...Underwater...trying to look at fish
and eels without a mask... Humuhumunukunuku
apua'a... Swimming at Fort DeRussy, trying not to get stung by da Portuguese
Man-o'-War...
The big tidal
wave from Japan that washed up over Kalakaua Avenue...Being able to tell what
month it was by the color of Diamond Head...When inside Diamond Head was opened
to the public again...hiking inside and finding big cannons sticking out of
concrete pukas...
1949...auwe!...a
big underwater shelf broke off and shook the whole island!...
Puka
in the Pali...
Webley
Edwards with his mike walking along the beach and talking to the tourists...and
taking the mike down to the ocean to let everyone listening on the mainland hear
the sound of the waves at Waikiki...on Hawaii Calls...
When all the
tourists were mostly movie stars or rich and came on Matson ships and stayed at
the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and wore furs in the evenings!...
Walking
down Waikiki Beach and spahking movie stars without ttheir toupees, wigs and
make-up...
Trader
Vic's...Don the Beachcomber's...the Zebra Room all painted with Zebra stripes
outside...
Seeing
painfully sunburned and peeling tourists at Waikiki...
Doing
the Hula in the "May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii" celebration...
Using the
uli-uli's, ili ili's and pu'ili's...making our own hula skirts out of ti
leaves... splitting the ti leaves
with our thumb nails and having green hands for a week...
4 digit phone numbers... English standard schools...Japanese
language lessons...
When nobody
locked their houses or cars... Lei Ana Ika verses... "Right on the kini
popo"..
When anything
that said "Made in Japan" was junk...
When everyone called Plumerias
"Graveyard Flowers"..
When restaurants
were called either Cafes or Grills...
Wooden sided station wagons filled with
bananas..."Banana Wagon"...
Buying
Sushi cones on the way home from school from the Sushi man and his cart on the
corner...
Sunday
morning, December 7, 1941...Black Out! Block wardens and gas masks...air raid
drills...backyard bomb shelters...442nd, "Go for Broke"..."bobbed
wiah" on da beaches... KILROY WAS HERE...
Eating
lots of Spam...
Kaimuki red
dirt...everything you bought white turned reddish brown...your sheets, your
underwear...
Surfing in your
palaka bathing suit... Fitted Holokus with long trains with a loop for your
wrist...
Tita
dress: cuffed up Levis, Aloha shirt with the sleeves rolled up twice, ear rings
and slippahs... Wearing a white sailor hat...Wooden slippahs with two slats of
wood across the bottoms...w ecalled them "clop-clops"...
When you
could buy sox and tennis shoes that came in-between the big toe and the rest of
your toes...
Waking
up with mo'os in your bed, sometime dead because you slept on them and sometime
just their tails were left behind...
Shave Ice on a
hot day... Finding Japanese green, white and lavender glass fishing
balls in various sizes floating in to the beaches on the north shore...
"Calabash
cousins"... Watching sea weed being harvested on a weekend...Torch fishing
at night...
Example of
a "dumb haole"...driving up Tantalus and Round Top Drive and haole
says "I bet these roads are really dangerous when it
snows"..
Listening to Hawaii Calls...
Playing around the mouth
of Blow-Hole...trying
to guess when it would blow...so you could run...
Playing on top of the Reservoir
in Kaimuki...
When there were so
many palm trees that coconuts were falling on
people's heads...and owners cutting them down for fear of getting sued...
Arthur Godfrey playing his ukulele...Hale Loki..."Hawai-ya, hawai-ya,
Hawai-ya?"
and Chesterfields...
Listening to the Japanese radio
station and hearing Japanese
men grunting, groaning and growling at each other...
The traffic cop
in a little booth in the middle of the street with an umbrella over it...
Uku-pile-a-roaches
and FLIT GUNS...later to be replaced by...the SLIPPAH...
Servicemen...complaining
about "life on the rock", drinking, swearing, hitchhiking, making
passes, driving too fast, and sometimes getting blown off the Pali on their
motorcycles, and drowning after ignoring the dangerous surf warnings on the
North Shore winter time...
Manoa Valley...swiping painted candles from the
Chinese cemetery...laying on the graves to see what it felt like to be
dead...looking
at all the photos on the grave stones and wondering about their lives...sliding
down the ti leaf slide and going home covered with mud...going "mountain
apple-ing"...hiking to the falls in the rain through the bamboo when there
was no trail..."liquid sunshine" every day about the same time...
Fire
crackers and smoke filling the valleys and the houses on Chinese New Years...
When everyone had a pune'e and at least one old Koa table in their home...
When
Nu'uanu Valley was a thick, lush, tropical rain forest...with many upside down
falls...the monkey pod tree in the middle of the road at Nu'uanu and
Vineyard...
Kapiolani Drive-In... When Kalakaua Ave.
was a two-way street...
Admission to the Honolulu Zoo was free...
Waialua, Ewa, Kahuku & Waianae
sugar plantations...working in the cane fields...cane trains...the irrigation
system was up on wooden tilts... Riding the sugar
cane flumes in Kahuku and no telling anyone you took a pee in
the water and then watching folks at the bottom drinking the water...
Honolulu Airport was on the Diamond Head side of
the runway...
Jumping into the water holding a Hau leaf in your mouth so
the water
wouldn't go up your nose...
Working in the pineapple factory and the fields...
Riding horses in Kapiolani Park...
When the Natatorium
was called the Tank...
Lau
Yee Chai was on Kuhio Ave. and set off firecrackers every Saturday evening at 6...
Oh, how I long
for the old Hawai'i.
by: Jean Fox Horn, daughter of Dr. John Fox, Punahou's
president for many years during our years there.
Click here to go to ==>>
"
Remember the 50's
"
web site
-------------
MORE DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?
And you didn't pay for air?
And, you got trading stamps to boot?
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed . . . and they did?
When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car... to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like,
"That cloud looks like a ..." and playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today?
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?
Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys,
Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy
and the Peanut Gallery,
the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows,
Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale,
Trigger and Buttermilk.
Summers filled with bike rides, baseball games,
Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool,
and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"?
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between
old enough to know better and too young to care.
How many of these do you remember?
Candy cigarettes Wax Coke-shaped
bottles with colored sugar water inside Soda pop machines that dispensed
glass bottles Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes Blackjack, Clove and
Teaberry chewing gum Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard
stoppers Newsreels before the movie P.F. Fliers
Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601)..
Party lines
Peashooters Howdy Dowdy 45 RPM records Green Stamps Hi-Fi's
Metal ice cubes trays with levers Mimeograph paper Beanie and Cecil
Roller-skate keys Cork pop guns Drive ins Studebakers
Washtub wringers The Fuller Brush Man Reel-To-Reel tape recorders
Tinkertoys
Erector Sets
The Fort Apache Play Set
Lincoln Logs
15 cent McDonald hamburgers
5 cent packs of baseball cards -
with that awful pink slab of bubble gum
Penny candy
35 cent a gallon gasoline
Jiffy Pop popcorn
Do you remember a time when...
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
A foot of snow was a dream come true?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense? Spinning around, getting dizzy,
and falling down was cause for giggles?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived !!!!!!!
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown-up" life . . .
I double-dog-dare-ya!
----------------------
Being Hawaiian Or Hawaiian At Heart:
Do you remembah when....
1. The possibility of a longshoreman strike made you panic.
2. You don't understand why anyone would buy less than a 20 lb. bag of rice.
3. You serve Spam as main course for dinner.
4. You can taste the difference between teriyaki and kal-bi.
5. You know what a plumeria is.
6. You don't wear your shoes in the house.
7. You know why there are alphabets on trees or posts on graduation day.
8. You know what and when "Lei Day" is.
9. You know what a "stink eye" is and how to give it.
10. You know what nationality girl (more than one) would put tape on her eyelids and why.
11. You can correctly pronounce Kalanianaole, Kalakaua, Aiea, Likelike, karaoke, and Pipeline.
12. You know the items in the Big Breakfast at McDonald's.
13. You know what a "huli huli" chicken is.
14. You can name at least 3 varieties of mangos.
15. You have (or know someone who has) at least one family member whose name is "junior boy" or "tita".
16. The words, "da kine," are a normal part of your conversation.
17. You know the difference between being "hapa" and being "hapai."
18. You give directions using mauka and makai.
19. You know what "Hawaii Pono'i" is (and you know the words).
20. You know what it takes to get into Kamehameha School.
21. Someone says the word "uku" and your head starts itching!
22. You raise your chin to say "wassup" instead of nodding.
23. When making "shaka", the back of your hand is facing out.
24. You say, "nori" not seaweed paper.
25. You say "Brah," not "Bro."
26. You despise the movie "North Shore."
27. Your jokes are about Portuguese people, not Polish people.
28. You laugh at couples wearing cheesy matching Aloha attire.
29. You have a pair of "rubbah slippahs" (not flip flops).
30. You e-mail people in pidgin.
31. You know what (and where) "Morgan's Corner" is (and it still scares you!)
32. When it is 70 degrees outside, it is "freezing!"
32. You use "tako" instead of worms or fluorescent pink fish eggs for fishing bait.
33. You got "lickins wit da rubbah slippah" when you "was small kid time."
34. You can walk through Waianae and not get mobbed.
35. You know that "kukui nut" is not a mental person.
36. You give Kahi Mohala's number out to someone you don't like.
37. You call it "saimin" not "Top Ramen" (Sapporo Ichiban is better.)
38. The surf report is on your speed dial and you always have a tide calendar on your wall.
39. You have a beach car.
40. Dressing up means shorts and an aloha shirt.
41. You call it "shave ice", not snow cone or shaved ice.
42. Rainbow Drive-Inn is a special date.
43. You go to Kam, not Aloha, Swap Meet.
44. You know pineapples don't grow on trees.
45. You know what li hing mui powder is and you put it on everything (even in tequila!!!).
46. You ask for shoyu and not soy sauce.
47. You call public transportation "Uncle Frank's limousine" or "da BUS."
48. You have a relative in a state job get you a state job.
49. The Governor is your cousin (or your mother's brother's father's sister's uncle's son.)
50. You know what the H3 is, but you are scared to drive on it because it's haunted.
51. You search your car for pork before you go over the Pali.
52. You go to Neiman Marcus "jus fo look." (AKA - Needless Markups)
53. You can name the cast of Hawaii 5-O.
54. Mainland people can't understand you when you talk
55. You ask for "fruit punch" at McDonald's on the mainland. ("Wat? No mo'? ").
56. You eat spam musubi on a regular basis.
57. You wear "slippahs" almost everywhere.
58. You can be wearing "boros" and nobody cares.
59. You like ume, daikon, and kim chee better than pickles.
60. When you've got to go to the bathroom, you say "I going shi shi."
61. When explain the location of something to your friend, you use landmarks instead of street names.
62. You go to Kam Bowl to eat "oxtail soup"
63. You think Baywatch Hawaii is stupid, because they "dunno how fo ack! "
64. You know the difference between sushi and sashimi.
65. You know your "hemajang" pickup truck is going to pass the safety inspection because you know the auntie of the cousin of the uncle of the "bruddah" cousin of the uncle who's your "auntie" ("he one mahu") and they "get one bruddah-in-law who work fo da" service station.
66. You forward Hawaiian e-mails to all the "locals" in "yo' da kine special e-mail list..."
-----------------------
Sandwich days of our
youth.
#1 popular. Spam sandwich.
Fried spam on Wonder Bread (toasted) with dill pickles on the side. Ummmmm,
broke da mout' ono.....
Kim-chee sandwiches, made by draining
kim chee on paper towels, spreading mayo on bread and stuffing with kim chee.
Corned-beef sandwiches made with warm canned corned beef mixed with black pepper
and mayo and layered with lettuce leaf and diced tomato
Deviled-ham sandwiches made from canned deviled ham, again with black pepper and
mayo.
Sardine sandwiches using Homes brand oil-packed sardines (bones removed), mixed
with a little finely chopped onion, a tablespoon of diced tomatoes, pepper &
mayo.
Campbell's Vegetable Beef Soup sandwiches - toast your bread, heat the coup,
drain the broth, spread remember on toast. Ono!
Onion
sandwiches. Slice onion, soak in vinegar with a little salt and pepper. Put
between two pieces of bread.
Fried Bologna on white bread with mustard and sliced dill pickles and miracle
whip.
Vienna sausages rolled up in white bread, tomato, sandwiches with sandwich
spread or or pickle sandwiches.
Pork & Beans with mayo between two slices of white bread.
My kid time favorites were tomato, deviled-ham, sardine and pork & beans.
Ever had a potato salad sandwich.... potato salad between 2 pieces of bread.
All pau. I'm
getting hungry thinking about all dees ono-deelicious sandwiches. It's
time for kau kau. Ummmmmmm....
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