Rose Marie’s Brother David Bowers took us on a trip to Hawaii in 1980. We stayed out at Makaha in a two-bedroom condo for two weeks, rented a car, and saw everything there was to see on the main island. It was a super fantabulous trip for sure. David’s wife Renee, their daughter Renee Junior and David’s father met us when we got off the plane in Honolulu. There was a swimming pool right outside our bedroom window. We took in the usual Luau, ate on the Oceana, went on a disco Cruise, visited Brigham Young University, pineapple and Sugar plantations, Sea World the zoo, Waimea Falls. The huge waves on the North Shore, the Pearl Harbor Memorial, the whole ball of Wax.

We spent almost a whole day at the zoo. There was one place you could walk around in on paths, it was full of exotic birds with native foliage everywhere. 

On the other side of the island, they had a place like SeaWorld where there were water shows going on most of the time. A dolphin jumped out of the water and landed right in front of us soaking everyone with water. The killer whales were a site to watch with young ladies riding on them. 

One night there was a luau, where a pig was roasted underground, in traditional style. It was a lot of music laughter and activities. Rose’s dad had two blue Hawaii drinks that night. He thought they tasted sweet and good. Later, that night I heard him tell David I can’t sleep the bed is going round and round. David said, “dad put one foot on the floor, you’ll be OK.” I guess he did then and went to sleep.  

It’s a small, small world, one evening while sitting out by the swimming pool. I looked across the pool where there was a young fellow and his wife sitting. He was looking back at me, we immediately recognized each other I walked over and asked him if he worked in physical therapy at Sioux Valley Hospital in 1964. He told me that he was, and he remembered me having therapy every day for about 3 months while I was there. I was on the second orthopedic floor with a broken back. He recalled I came to therapy by myself riding face down on my striker frame with a cane in each hand. I would travel down the hall like a cross-country skier, getting on and off the elevator even. It kept my upper body strength that way. He recalled my right leg not moving for the first two months I was there. They got it working by putting electrodes on different muscle motor nerves.  One night we had dinner in a five-story floating restaurant. It was called the Oceana, It was floated to Hawaii from Hong Kong. An elegant/expensive dinner! 

Another night David and his wife wanted to go on a disco cruise. I wasn’t too crazy about going out of the ocean, for dancing in the dark. The waves it’s got very rough, the dancers would go from one side of the floor to the other. The Disko cruise ended up in the Pearl Harbor area out of the rough water. A young soldier walked over to me and Rose and asked, “are you folks at the wrong boat?”. A dinner cruise went out before us, I wouldn’t care to enjoy a meal on the rocky Rolly ocean for sure. These are a few of the memories I still have from our trip to Hawaii. 

David, Rene, and junior arrived ahead of us. They met us at the airport and put flower lays around our necks. It truly was an unforgettable trip. I’ve done quite a bit of flying in my life, about halfway from Los Angeles to Hawaii, I was relaxing with my seat back looking up at the ceiling. There was a panel on the ceiling jiggling back and forth, soon it came loose on one side and dropped down a few inches. I asked the stewardess if that was supposed to do that, and she said no but didn’t seem too concerned about it. Somebody came and pushed it back into place.  

The first time I flew to Hawaii was in 1960 from Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco to Tokyo Japan. We flew across the ocean at that time in a Super Constellation. We were in the air 24 hours flying time between San Francisco and Tokyo. We made refueling stops at Hawaii and Midway Island. We should all be thankful, air travel has gotten a lot better.