Back Streets Back Roads

A  L  O  H  A !

A Nice Summer Day to Wander

" I live on a one-way street
 that's also a dead end. 
I'm not sure how I got there.  "

Steven Wright

So many wonders to see!

"You need to let

 the little things

 that would ordinarily

 bore you 

suddenly 

thrill you.” 

Andy Warhol

Just riding past- what's happening HERE?

“There are no

 ordinary moments. 

There is always 

something 

going on.” 

 Peaceful Warrior

Wait! Look at the trousers. Could it be?!

" It always amazes me 

to think

 that every house 

on every street 

is full of so many stories; 

so many triumphs 

and tragedies, 

and all we see 

are yards and driveways.  "

Glenn Close

YES!  Lion Dancers at Practice!

" Great works 

are often born

 on a street corner 

or in a restaurant's

 revolving door.  "

Albert Camus

 >  <  }  }  ( ° >

Isn't Summer just the time for wandering?

After daily routines of school for months

the child in each of us awakes to

June light and realizes: Freedom!

I like the back streets,

 the carriage ways, back alleys

and lanes- 

 of which Honolulu has many.

One of the things I learned from Dad:

The main routes - are not the ONLY way.

Civilians knew the main roads,

but we knew the shortcuts, sights,

and logic

of going just one block over.

On my scooter

I still prefer our leafy residential streets

most laid in the 20th Century

of which this small island city

is a singular museum.

There is a picture of the President

on a visit home after his grandma "Toot"

had passed,

walking alone (for the moment)

down my fave little Young St

(I guess his too)

a block from where he grew up

in her home. 

Are YOU wandering this Summer,

in your town?

Region?

Country?

Continent?

World?

Can't WAIT

to see your pictures,

and hear YOUR stories;

but as for me,

I'll be ambling around

Honolulu Town

on my little scooter.

Toot!   Toot!

Thank YOU for stopping

                              Warmly, cloudia

Bradbury- Remember the Future

A  L  O  H  A !

The Miracle of Light While flying

Gerardo Dottori 1931

" Don't think.

 Thinking is the enemy of creativity.

 It's self-conscious, 

and anything self-conscious 

is lousy. 

You can't try to do things. 

You simply must do things.  "

Ray Bradbury

 Mechanix Illustrated 1955

 " Every morning I jump out of bed

 and step on a landmine. 

The landmine is me.

After the explosion,

 I spent the rest of the day 

putting the pieces

 together.  "

Ray Bradbury 

 Oh click on THIS one!

 The City of 1950

as envisioned in 1925

Popular Science Monthly

" I have never listened
 to anyone who criticized 
my taste in space travel,
 sideshows or gorillas. 
When this occurs,
 I pack up my dinosaurs 
and leave the room .”

  Ray Bradbury

courtesy David H. Szondy

" If we listened to our intellect,

 we'd never have a love affair. 

We'd never have a friendship. 

We'd never go into business, 

because we'd be cynical. 

Well, that's nonsense. 

You've got to jump off cliffs 

all the time

 and build your wings 

on the way down.  "

Ray Bradbury

The Year 2000

as viewed ca 1900

 “Stuff your eyes with wonder,
 live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds.
 See the world. 
It's more fantastic
 than any dream
 made or paid for 
in factories.”

Ray Bradbury 

 

 >  <  }  }  ( ° >

Remember the future?

I used to live there.

Old stuff

was being cleared;

we called it

urban renewal.

The future was shiny

and right around

the corner.

The 1964 Worlds Fair

gave us the 'look'

just as the old Expositions had

one hundred years

before.

Space beckoned,

heck, we were going there!

Leisure

would be

the biggest problem;

Flying cars

never crash.

Poverty

sickness

even death

made extinct!

It was just

a matter of time.

Though I remember

wondering

WHAT the average household

would EVER do

with a computer!

Funny,

but today I live 

a lot in the

past.

The future back then

looked better

than the one

that looms.

Perhaps all 

"grown ups"

feel that way.

Thank you Ray Bradbury

for taking me to Mars,

for making me think

of which great book

I'd save from the fire

in my mind.

Thanks Uncle Ray!

But the future

is not yours

and mine-

it belongs

to the children

imagining it now

and will look like

NOTHING

you and I

can dream.

I wish them

luck.

Thanks for YOUR visit!

                                     Warmly, cloudia

 

 “Some people turn sad awfully young.

 No special reason, it seems,

 but they seem almost to be born that way. 

They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker,

 remember longer and,

 as I say, get sadder younger 

than anyone else in the world.

 I know, for I'm one of them.”

― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Hawaii Flower Parade

A  L  O  H  A !                                     

 

" There is always

 something left to love. 

And if you ain't learned that, 

you ain't learned nothing. "

Lorraine Hansberry

God Save the Queen - Hawaii's View

 Perhaps our Brit Friends wonder

what we out-landers make

of this week's 
Golden Jubilee.

Well, in a world of

constant change,

constancy

is noted,

valued,

appreciated;

Especially constancy

in Duty.

What ever the politics
of the moment,

the Queen

is for ALL her people.


For us too-
your cultural, linguistic
offspring and allies-
she has been a fixture
of the world we share.

She provides something

both ancient

and contemporary.

She is a great gem

of a great people

and nation

that have given much

to the 

whole world.

God Bless the Queen!

Sincerely, 

                                   an American


Now for the HAWAII twist! 


Unlike other Americans,
we of Hawaii
still remember our own
monarchy.

Our Hawaiian kings & queens 
ever flavor our experience
of living in these islands.

From Iolani Palace,
to Queens Medical Center,
to St. Andrew's Cathedral,
and the affiliated
St. Andrew's Priory School,
they are still present with us
in many authentic ways.

Their names are on our streets,
and ever in our hearts.

They are beloved,
and fondly remembered.

Their statues
grace our lovely islands.

But there is are connections
more than symbolic
between the royalty of Hawaii
and that of Great Britain.


  Hawaii's Queen Emma 
was warmly received
 by Queen Victoria
 herself.

 Victoria's Diamond Jubilee





 The two widow queens
 sympathized with one other
 as Queen Victoria recorded
 in her journal
 on September 9, 1865:

    "After luncheon I received Queen Emma, 

the widowed Queen of the Sandwich Islands 

or Hawaii.
Met her in the Corridor & nothing

 could be nicer or more dignified 

than her manner.
She is dark, but not more so than an Indian,

 with fine feathers [features?] & splendid soft eyes.
 She was dressed in just the same 

widow's weeds as I wear.
 I took her into the White Drawing room, 

where I asked to sit down next to me on the sofa.
She was moved when I spoke to her 

of her great misfortune in losing her only child.
She was very discreet & would only remain 

a few minutes. She presented her lady,
 Mrs. Hoopile whose husband is her Chaplain, 

both being Hawaiians.... "

 
Despite the obvious difference 
in station, Queen Emma
 and Queen Victoria 
had both lost sons
 and spouses.

Both bore the responsibility
of the crown.

 The two queens
 became life-long friends,
and shared a lively exchange
of correspondence.
 

  Emma traveled to London in 1865
 specifically to visit 
and spent a night
 at Windsor Castle
 on November 27. 


Our ubiquitous 
Hawaiian Heirloom Jewelry, 
  originated with a gift
 from Queen Victoria to
Hawaii's Princess Liliuokalani
 in 1880. 

  It was a solid gold bracelet 
with the Princess' name 
engraved and enameled upon it
in olde English script.

 Another famous example:
Queen Emma's own
silver bracelet
engraved
 "Aloha ia ka heiheimalie."

(Very Roughly:
 "Love for the People of the Fragrant Maile" 
Hawaii's people were oft likened to flowers.
Kaulana Na Pua - the patriot's song of
Hawaii, praises the famous flowers- PUA- of Hawaii
i.e. her people-



[If you play this song, while God Save the Queen
continues, they make a unique blend!]

These Victorian style heirlooms
are seen everywhere.
They are popular gifts for
graduations, births, anniversaries,
and WORN (not locked away). 
I wear several daily.

  Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV 

They petitioned the Church of England

 to help establish the Church of Hawaii

 We look upon Elizabeth
and we feel a kinship,
and a loss.

A  L  O  H  A ! 


                                             Warmly, cloudia

Transit of Venus - Live from Hawaii

A L O H A !   View it HERE:

 Approximately a century

 after the great Captain Cook

 had placed Hawaii on the map,

 another British vessel, HMS Scout, 

docked in Honolulu Harbor,

Kingdom of Hawaii.

The day was September 9, 1874,

and the seven astronomers aboard

were  on the same mission

as Cook's expedition of 1769 

– to observe, and to record for science,

a rare transit of Venus across the sun.

The solar system's scale

 was as yet

 not girded with

any real knowledge

 derived from measurement. 

Venus' Transit presents

 an excellent opportunity

 to determine

 something called

 "the Astronomical Unit"

which, according to NASA is:

" - approximately the mean distance

 between the Earth and the Sun. 

It is a derived constant 

and used to indicate distances

 within the solar system."

  LINK

Hawaii's King Kalakaua 

(who had his palace wired for electricity by 

Edison 4 years before the White House was)

 took personal interest in 

the endeavor, granting the expedition

 a suitable piece of open land

 not far from our Honolulu 

 waterfront and downtown.

 A wooden palisade enclosed

 a well-equipped nineteenth-century

 astronomical observatory, including:

 "several temporary structures including wooden observatories, a bathing tent, a cook house,

 and a sappers’ barrack."   

Michael Chauvin

 Simpler  establishments 

were also placed two neighbor islands:

 at Kailua-Kona on the island of Hawaii, 

and at Waimea on the island Kauai.

 Journals of the scientists speak of 

heat unrelieved by thatched roofing,

even doubled layers of it!

 They mention our winds,

powerful and playful enough

to dispatch a 90-foot coconut palm

 crashing through the observatory fence 

 Apparently it rained enough

 to flood the observatory grounds

 and float the floors

 of their wooden buildings.  

 Mr. Chauvin's timely book

 also gives us the pleasure 

of seeing our beloved Merrie Monarch 

 through the eyes of busy, preoccupied

 'men of science'

One of them, George Tupman journal-ed that:

  "King Kalakaua had not only interrupted

 the astronomers’ work 

with a two-hour evening visit, 

but that he had had the temerity

 to propose that if, as soon as all the instruments 

were mounted, the astronomers would

 open the observatory grounds to the public

 for a week,

 His Majesty would provide 

some additional entertainment

 by sending his own military band 

down every day! "

Hawaiian hospitality was not appreciated

 by these busy men!

  Perhaps this is where our UN-serious reputation

 as a place to conduct serious business

got started?

On the day-

" at about 3 o’clock hundreds of natives 

arrived at the gates in their holiday clothes! "

From a journal of the time quoted by Dr. Chauvin

To make matters worse,

 during the time surrounding the actual Transit,

 the king was abroad in Washington DC attempting to negotiate the Reciprocity Treaty that the Kingdom desperately needed for important political

 and economic reasons.  

" When the Reciprocity Treaty was signed

 in January 1875, it would put Hawaii’s fragile economy

 on a firm basis by permitting Hawai‘i-grown sugar

 to enter the United States duty-free.  

But it would also direct the Hawaiian Islands

 away from their long-standing flirtations with England

 and toward their consummate embrace

 with the United States; "

Chauvin

Pearl Harbor became property

 ( "leased") of the US Navy-

History.

 The transit of Venus was observed

 here in Honolulu on December 8th.

 

 The sun's disk disappeared in the Pacific

 at 5:18 p.m. Honolulu Mean Time.

[No word about any green flash on that day.] 

 The transit was not complete, 

but the observations of it's progress

were sufficient. 

I am indebted

 for this fascinating information 

to a lecture by Dr. Michael Chauvin 

that was originally delivered by him on 

June 7, 2004,

 at the Smithsonian Institution 

in Washington, D.C.   

It is reproduced as an article at 

www.transitofvenus.org. 

Please check out Mr. Chauvin's 

fascinating volume via this  LINK.

Hokuloa: 

The British 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition

 to Hawai'i

Michael Chauvin 

ISBN: 1581780230

 Can also be ordered by phone (808-848-4135),

 fax (808-847-8260)

 LINK

Thank You!

                         Warmly, cloudia