Category: Personal

Nine years ago this month, I had just moved into a new apartment, and my wife had just started a new job. Tuesday morning we both went to work as normal. I was shooting the breeze with a coworker when another guy came into the workroom to let us know that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I recall dismissing the report with a breezy assurance that the Towers had been designed to withstand the impact of a General Aviation plane, and recounted the story of the B-25 that hit the Empire State Building in the 40’s. As the news came through in fragments, it became clear that my initial impressions were, well, wrong. Someone had plugged in a TV in an unused conference room, and we drifted in and out, watching Telemundo between trying (and failing) to get any useful work done. (It was set up before the other stations lost their antennae that were on the WTC buildings; I can’t say why we couldn’t pull in anything else besides Telemundo). My half-remembered Spanish wasn’t up to the task of following the commentators.

The “where were you” moment for me happened while I was standing in the doorway between the main work room and a smaller area off to the side where the laptop imaging stations were. A radio was on, tuned to a news broadcast. They were reporting that an airliner had hit the Pentagon, and I burst out with “My mother works there!” Of course, all the long-lines were jammed, so I couldn’t call down to find out anything, and between that and the reports of a car-bombing of the Main State building (where my father had worked for a long time), I wasn’t in any shape to keep working, though I tried for a while. Coworkers started drifting out to go home, and I eventually did likewise. I could see the tops of the smoke plumes rising in the north once I got home.

Eventually, probably via IM, I got the news that my mother was fine (she had been almost directly across the Pentagon from the point of impact, in the basement, and would later claim that her office had thought a transformer blew until they got to the marshaling areas. The only damage to her offices was the stench caused by a bunch of shrimp in a fridge that lost power) My father had been working in Crystal City, which I had forgotten. But a close friend of mine, who I figured was fine because she didn’t start work until 10 am, had chosen to go in early that day to her job across the street from the WTC, and her husband was half-mad because he hadn’t heard from her. Around dinnertime, he finally heard from her; she had been on the first subway train diverted from the WTC stop, and was actually caught in the dust cloud of the first tower going down. She had walked from there to the Brooklyn Bridge, and then uptown to the 34th st ferry to get across the Hudson. Later on I would hear of college classmates who worked in the area who had survived as well. (As far as I know, anyone I knew personally who was in the area survived).

I have a folder of music made for, changed for, or inspired by the occasion, including a recording of “Fire and Rain” insterspersed by sound clips from that day and following. It was put together by a local radio station.  It has famous sound bites from the president and others, and it also has clips from callers to the station, including an eyewitness to the second plane going in, from which I deduce the man  was Roman Catholic and of a certain age, judging by his shouting “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Some of these songs are rather jingoist (there’s one entitled “Yackety Yak, Bomb Iraq, for example). Others are more solemn.

Three of them can be found on Youtube. Two are rather famous, one is less so.

We have:

Leslie Fish’s Flight 93

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPYMS9a8ELE[/youtube]

Neil Young’s Let’s Roll

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg6kLk38GTE[/youtube]

 Alan Jackson’s Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW8puRqE4Sc[/youtube]

For this last song, I deliberately chose that video rather than another of Mr. Jackson himself because it includes images (video and still; all very moving) and some audio, from that day and later, overlaid. In particular, there are images some would prefer to be pushed down the memory hole; and I don’t believe they should be. Be warned, though, I wiped some tears from my eye while watching it.

I literally spent 8 years of my first decade with US Marines all around. As a Foreign Service brat I saw them every time I visted my father at work, and some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to barbeques hosted by the local Marine House. But they weren’t just scenery and grill cooks to me; by the time I was 10 I knew most of the history behind the verses of the Marine Corps hymn, and was well aware that these men were ferocious fighters as well as friendly faces. And while I thought about joining the military when I graduated high school, it turned out that it’s very hard to get an appointment to an Academy from Northern Virginia, and the college I went to didn’t have an ROTC detatchment. My life ended up moving away from the military path, “encouraged” by the drawdown of the mid-nineties and my father’s experiences as a Navy Reservist in that period. But I’ve never lost my respect for the men and women who chose (or, in times past, were chosen) to walk that path.

One of the songs I always make sure to load on my music player is Warrior Song. I paid my buck for the song, and count it cheap at the price. Today, I took a look over at their site and found the USMC version. Semper Fi, and may the Republic be worthy of your service.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sam4lq2WHos&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Having some embed issues? – see the video at their site or on Youtube

Today I am significantly increasing my odds of death by vulcanism, which brings up the inevitable question, what caliber for shield volcanoes? On the summit of Kilauea right now, actually. Staying a bit farther down her slopes tonight at a bed and breakfast. The lava pokery options are not very good right now, as there are no surface eruptions. Right now there’s only vent activity at the crater, and Kilauea’s piping is carrying lava underground and out to sea. A day of hiking, and hopefully not firey death, ahead.

We’ve been following a guide book to Oahu for a lot of our trip. While it has certainly been useful, I’ve found following around filming locations from ABC’s Lost has actually been the better way to get to know the island. Today we did a hike from the guide book. The book describes it as a mild two mile hike (one mile in, one mile out). They describe it as a hike anyone can do. I suppose this is literally true, if you don’t mind a gentle romp through a fragile, naturally pure and beautiful rain forest, don’t mind getting covered in mud, eaten alive by mosquitos, climbing slippery boulders where a slip could mean a plunge to your doom. The only thing missing from this picture were screaming monkeys, which I’m happy about, given that monkeys are evil, and are best dealt with through use of instruments that the State of Hawaii has deemed me too irresponsible to carry.

I’ve hiked enough to know how to deal with muddy, wet conditions, if I’m warned beforehand. But reading it was an improved trail, and we’re in the dry(er) season, I figured my kakis and an Aloha shirt would be fine. Oops. About one third of the way in, I suddenly realize I’m woefully overdressed for the occasion. But not wanting to give up, I trudge on, through the archways made through Banyan tress, slowly becoming more and more soaked with sweat as the air, which is unable to accept any more moisture, fails my cooling system, which is adapted for the dry, african savanna, and not rain forests in Hawaii.

But I continue on, not wanting to give up, and wanting to see this neat, tall waterfall that is the second most popular hike on Oahu. We have to meet Bitter’s grandmother for dinner in a few hours. Surely she won’t mind of I show up with muddy shoes, muddy pants, and dripping enough sweat I’ll look like I went for a dip in the ocean? Maybe I can dip under the waterfall when I get up there. I’ve already swam in one waterfall this week. From a distance I become concerned. Concerned that all I see is a small sliver of water in an awful lot of green. Bitter is starting to look dehydrated, and is having second thoughts about whether the pain is worth the reward, and decides to hang back and let me continue ahead. I’ve been told it’s been a pretty dry year, but it’s rain forest, right? The ground is wet and muddy! Well, down in the valley maybe it’s raining, but I’m not sure there’s enough rain up high to really get the falls moving. Sure enough, I am disappointed when I get there. My tall, gushing waterfall is so anemic, I think if I climbed to the top and peed in the stream that feeds it, I’d probably double its size. But such is nature. I wouldn’t mind so much if the book had prepared me for a muddy, wet, humid, and mosquito infested hike, but it didn’t. I guess the real lesson is don’t trust guide books. And oh yeah, the rain forest sucks. There’s nothing fun, even prepared, hiking in saturated air at 100% relative humidity. I guess that hippy eco tour of Costa Rica I’ve never wanted to take is going to be out then.

Tomorrow is our last day on Oahu. Monday, early, we fly over to the Big Island (Hawaii), and change our itinerary from Lost tours, glider flying, snorkeling, hiking, and historical Hawaii stuff, to astronomy, vulcanology, and coffee farming. It should be an interesting change of pace. It also should be an interesting change of scale. There’s a reason they call it “The Big Island.” Oahu is small. You can generally get anywhere on the island within an hour, not accounting for bad traffic sometimes in Honolulu. But the Big Island would take the better part of a day to circumnavigate. The population density on the Big Island is also much lower, which, after a week in or around Honolulu, I’m looking forward to. Based on lava forecasts, it doesn’t appear I’ll be able to live my dream of poking lava with a stick, but I have to save something for next time. For now I’m happy to be headed to Pele’s playground.

The standard out here seems to be Hawaiian Isles, 100% Hawaiian Purified Water. Now, I usually drink bottled water at home, because Philly water tastes like they stick a dead fish in the pipe ever couple of hundred gallons. Now don’t get me wrong, Hawaiian Isles is good water, but here’s the description on the bottle:

From the rain clouds in tropical skies to the tops of island mountains, then filtered through layers of volcanic rock to a natural aquifer deep underground, Hawaiian Isles water is purified naturally on its journey to you…

It then goes on to describe the high tech filtering they do to the water. But lets go down the list of what water is going to do on Oahu: Start in clouds? Check. Fall onto volcanic mountains? Check. Seep through porous volcanic rock to the water table? Check. Folks, I’m pretty sure this successfully describes the journey the Honolulu municipal water supply makes. How much would you bet?

I’m helping to fill in on Snowflakes in Hell while someone insists on vacationing in Hawai’i.  For those of you who don’t know me: I am Clayton Cramer.  I normally blog over at my own blog, so you will likely see some overlap while I filling in.

It took a while for me to get started on guestblogging because I was:

1. Finishing a State & Local Government class in the summer term at one technical institute.

2. Starting first semester U.S. History class in the fall term at College of Western Idaho.

The overlap of a week was a bit much.

Hawaii is one of the last states on my list of states that I have not visited. A visit I count as having spent more than a few hours in outside of an airport. Hawaii is definitely one of the more unique states. Most states have other states that are pretty similar culturally, economically, or geographically. I think it’s safe to say that Hawaii has no other state it shares a lot with.

That’s not to say Hawaii is not American. I’ve heard others try to tell me that Hawaii doesn’t feel like part of the United States; that it is somehow foreign. After being here a few days, I don’t share that impression. Hawaii feels like very much a part of the United States to me. They may be unique among states, and culturally very eclectic, but I think it’s uniquely American.

There’s evidence of an extensive military presence, both past and present here. That probably helps a bit in understanding what country you’re in, but I think what’s really American about Hawaii is it’s one of the most genuinely multicultural places I’ve ever visited. I don’t mean the politically correct view of that, so much as this is a place where there is a true melting pot. Everyone seems to be intermarrying and interbreeding with everyone else, such that I’m not sure you could even successfully classify the race of most people here. In Hawaiian culture, that just doesn’t seem to matter, which is the way things should be.

That’s reflected in the cuisine, which is quite worldly. You do have frequent use of tropical ingredients, which would be expected, and the Asian food here is excellent, even at the cheap places, but still quite a lot of fusion. We’ve been trying to eat at places frequented more by locals than by tourists, except for dinner last night, which we had at what was the Sydney Airport Bar in “Lost”. Down on Waikiki, and actually a pretty great bar.

Speaking of locals though, Hawaii is legitimately very cheesy. You’d tend to think Hawaiian shirts, Hula, “Aloha!” and “Mahalo!” stuff was put on for tourists, but they really seem to talk and dress like that. Residents seem to live the Hawaiian stereotypes, or at least some of them Hawaii is also one of the friendliest states I’ve visited. Everyone is nice. Service is great. Even away from the tourist haunts. Hawaiians seem to be genuinely happy people who want to help make other people happy. Philadelphia is an angry, gritty area. This is a happy place. Everyone is laid back. Spend a little time here, and you’ll see why.

Still have more of Oahu to see, then over to the Big Island, where hopefully I can find some lava to poke with a stick. It’s a highly scientific way of dealing with newly encountered phenomena. If I get to poke some lava, I’ll definitely be taking some Aloha back with me.

Bitter and I leave for Hawaii on Friday evening. Not wanting to neglect the blog the entire time, I’ve arranged to have some guest bloggers, and I will be posting from time to time as well. Got just about everything packed, getting the house clean, arranged to have my dad house sit while we’re gone (the advantage of having a retired dad). Now the crappy part is I’ve promised three big things at work before I go. Yesterday I delivered one of them. Today I hope to deliver the other. Friday it’s do or die for the third. Hopefully I’ll make it. Sometimes I think it creates more job stress to take a vacation than not to.