To Revisit a Moment in Time

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He had a wrinkled, leathery face with his eyes shielded by the bill of a battered green baseball cap with "John Deere" embroidered on it. He clutched the front rail of his walker as he supported his frail body while peering up at the names on the wall. I watched his lips move amongst the stubble of gray as he read the names. Did the names on the wall represent shipmates or old friends? I could not bring myself to interrupt his moment of solitude to ask.  A shaft of light streaming through the memorial reflected off a tear slowly moving down his weathered cheek as the crowd of tourists silently moved me away from him. There were 1,177 names of the men who went down with the Arizona on that fateful day, December 7, 1941, listed on that wall.  A number had my surname, but to my knowledge we were not related.

I retraced my steps toward the entrance of the memorial where a naval launch was waiting to take me back to shore. Along the way I paused by a large opening in the floor of the memorial where you can see the vague outline of the ship below. The USS Arizona, BB-39, was a Pennsylvania class battleship of 30,000 tons.  Black oil bubbles to the surface from it as it has for the last seventy years.  This oil once fired the boilers of the warship, producing steam for the turbines which produced 31,500 horsepower for turning four twelve foot propellers.  Now the oil is called "black tears". She weeps for those she could not protect on that fateful day. The ship is 609 feet long with a width of ninety-seven feet.  The memorial is over one hundred feet long, since it covers the width of the sunken behemoth.  Off the starboard side is the USS Missouri, a larger battleship upon which the   Japanese surrender was signed.  The visit to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was a very sobering experience.

Back aboard the tour bus the bus driver reminded us that there were two sunken ships at Pearl Harbor.

"How many ships are still on the bottom near Ford Island?"

There were several answers of one, two or three.

"Two.  The Arizona and the Utah.  We know 1,177 men went down with the Arizona."

The big Hawaiian's composure became more calm and he said, "Fifty-eight officers and men and..." his voice dropped to almost a whisper, "one baby girl."

The big man had our attention.

He continued his the story.  "The Utah was an old battleship used for target practice and had a fairly small compliment of men. Albert Wagner was a sailor aboard that ship who had a very special cargo. Do you know what that was?'

No one answers.

"He had in his locker the cremated remains of his infant daughter.  Earlier, Wagner's wife had given birth to twin daughters. Only one survived. Wagner's request to bury his daughter at sea had been approved by the Navy, but there was not a chaplain on board.  However, there was a chaplain scheduled to come aboard before the Utah would put to sea on Monday, the eighth of December, 1941. As you know, the Japanese sank the Utah on December 7th.  But that's not all of the story. Wagner and all but 58 men survived the attack.  The tiny burial urn was never recovered. But every year a woman appears on Ford Island to throw a lei into the water at the Utah's resting place. She says that she's never met her twin sister but sees her in every mirror she looks into. She is eternally grateful for the 58 brave officers and men that guard her little sister's crypt."

The big Hawaiian bus driver finished his story and all was quite.  Like the old man at the memorial  I felt a tear on my cheek.

FYI Burial at sea information for Naval veterans and dependents.

The Road to Hana and then some...

I remember the last time I was traveling by bus on a mountain road. It was quite a few years ago, and I was going from Manila to Olongapo City in the Philippine Islands.  It was a rather short bus filled with mostly native Filipinos jabbering in tagalog. There were a few chickens and a pig on board as well as a couple of tired U.S. military men.  The trip seemed to take forever over somewhat primitive roads.  We traveled through several villages most with the seemingly prerequisite Catholic church. We managed to get some warm beer at one stop, where the bus driver obligingly opened the bottles of San Miguel with his teeth.

We boarded the mini-bus at Lahaina, looking forward to a trip through the other Maui, the part not cluttered with souvenir shops and places hawking other things for tourists. As we left the urban area of  of the city we passed abandoned sugar mills, a reminder of when sugar was the number one industry in the islands.  We left highway 31 for highway 36, following the coast in a clockwise direction.  Highway 36 is known as the "Hana Highway". This road has quite a reputation. It is a mountain road built through the mountains by convict labor in 1926.  It was paved in 1962.  I use the term paved loosely because with the average traffic of one thousand cars per day there is considerable wear and tear on the road's surface. Actually, part of the road is so rough that certain rental car companies don't allow their cars to be driven on it. I was on the right side of the bus, or the oceanside.  This is the best side for those who aren't squeamish and those not afraid of heights. But the left side of the bus gets to hear and feel the constant brushing of foliage against the side of the bus. The first stop the bus makes before entering the rain forest is Hookipa Beach Park.  We stopped at a grassy knoll overlooking the beach. There were a number of surfers catching waves of an azure sea on this picture postcard morning. The sky was near cloudless, and a gentle breeze rippled the flag with the Union Jack in its corner.  A breath of salt tinged air was invigorating.

It's only 58 miles to Hana but due to the 600 turns or curves and 59 bridges it takes a while.Water falls seem to be everywhere and we stop at Wailua Falls,Puuohokomoa Falls and Waikani Falls. You can always tell when there is a waterfall ahead because of all the cars beside the road. The drive finds a place to park the bus on the roadside and we get off and elbow our way through the hordes of touristas to get a picture of the waterfall.  The waterfalls are best seen from the bridge.  The driver warns us to be aware of traffic across the one lane bridge. However, the bridges are always in the center of the hairpin turns  and vehicles must slow down. But the view is spectacular of a waterfall tumbling hundreds of feet down the mountainside in a tropical rain forest.  On much of this road 20 mph is the maximum. It is very narrow and vehicles almost come to a standstill when meeting. I peered down at an SUV with a young woman holding her steering wheel white-knuckled. And she was two feet from the edge of the road! Those would be the visitors. The natives hardly reduce speed at all. However, I did witness a rural mail carrier committing an illegal act  We were meeting a rural mail carrier in a turn and she had to back up to let us through. It's against carrier rules for them to back their vehicles up.  I was much concerned about our drivers ability. He never honked his horn when entering a blind turn. How was anyone to know that we were coming through?  They could not see us! I found while driving similar roads in the Pyrenees Mountains you need to let people know you are coming. On the road to Hana in one place I looked out my window and I could see nothing but the pounding surf hundreds of feet below. I am confident we were on the road although I could not see it. We were in a bus, not a plane. 

We stopped at a state park for a box lunch. It was a chance to relax a bit and enjoy lunch. Waves in this area can reach a height of 60 feet in winter making it a prime surfing spot.  We continue to Oheo Stream and Pools, sometimes called the Seven Sacred Pools. This gave us a chance to stretch our legs. The waterfalls cascade down the mountain to the sea creating seven pools along the way. The shoreline is either lava rock or vegetation here.  

On our way back to our hotel we stopped by a winery.  The tasting was very poorly administered, no cuspidor to spit in or no water to wash out the taste of each wine before sampling another. We bought of bottle of sweet wine and enjoyed it that night in the hotel. 

I'm not sure that I would refer to the road to Hana as an adventure but it certainly did show a part of Hawaii seldom seen.