My Home Town

Last week I shared about how a girl born in Hawaii married a boy born in Illinois and are both now living in New Jersey. This week, I was hoping to share DearHubby's point of view, but I had hoped to have him tell the story...Since I did not get the opportunity to ask DearHubby to do that for me, this week I want to share about the place I still consider my "home town".

Unfortunately, at this time, I do not have the opportunity to dig out any old photos, scan them in, and then post them...

I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and I lived there from 1975 to 1986.

When I was younger, my parents lived on the military base, Red Hill, and then around first grade or so my parents bought a house in Pearl City. Since my grandparents lived there, my parents decided to put me in the public school in walking distance from my grandparents house.

My fondest memories of living in Hawaii was my grandparents house. At that time, they had a "Hawaiian style" rancher with 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, a sewing room, a living room, a family room, and a bar. They had a tiny front yard, but my grandparents still had enough room to do a little gardening. They also had a huge mango tree on the side of the house, a guava and chico tree in the front of the house, and a filipino tree called "marungay" in the back of the house. Needless to say, whenever each fruit was in season, I thoroughly enjoyed each juicy one, especially when refrigerated!!!

The most exciting part about my grandparents house is the fact that it was like Grand Central Station. All of the family would gather there every evening because my grandma was the babysitter for each of us cousins. I am the eldest of all my cousins and so at about age 6 I was already helping my grandma babysit. It was so much fun, though, because I got to play with my cousins just like they were my brothers and sisters and I grew up knowing all my aunties and uncles. In fact, my mom's youngest sisters were still dating at that time and they would always take me out with them. Sometimes it was just a drive around the island just to get a shaved ice. Sometimes it was to the movies. Sometimes it was to the state fair or a local town one.

Once in awhile (at least 2 or 3 times a year) we'd have a visitor out of town and my grandparents would plan a day trip around the island with the whole family. We'd all meet at my grandparents' house in the morning. Pack up a huge cooler with marinated meat and another huge cooler with drinks. We'd pack up rice and other different snacks. We'd stop at all the scenic points, take pictures, and then in the middle of the day, we'd find a nice beach to stop at and BBQ! The kids would, of course, take a swim while the food was cooking. When the food was done, we'd stop to each lunch, and then go back in the ocean for another hour of swimming. Everything would get packed up and we were off to finish our drive around the island. Then, we'd all end up at my grandparents' house again for dinner.

Going to the beach was the same ordeal. We'd pack everything up and spend the day there.

We had a lot of family time together and that's what I remember most about Hawaii. My grandparents and most of my parents' families are still back there. A few of us are spread out across the U.S., but I think because my grandparents are still back there, I think we all still think of Hawaii, the island of Oahu, as our "home town."

Windward Skies by Ten Feet

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