Member-only story
I Almost Lived in Hawaii
Why didn’t I? That’s my story
Let’s get in the time machine and zoom back to 1959, a watershed year for me and my family, which I wrote about in this post.
Besides my sister getting married and leaving the family, my father got transferred to Hawaii that year. Hickam field. Pearl Harbor. The Arizona Memorial. Gloriously beautiful Hawaii.
Are you surprised I haven’t mentioned this before?
That’s because I didn’t go. Nope. To date, I have never been to the Aloha State.
I don’t remember exactly how I was told that we’d be going to Hawaii, but it sounded like a done deal to thirteen-year-old me. My parents didn’t tell me together, they hardly spoke to each other, but I was thrilled.
I looked up Hawaii and Hickam in the only information source we had at the time, the Encyclopedia Britannica. It looked wonderful, especially compared to dreary Rome, NY.
It’s important to note here that I, as the only kid in the equation, didn’t get a vote. No one asked what I thought of the…
