Since my next trip is to Hawaii, I wanted to relate a little story to you. Several years ago, when I’d just started a new job, I decided to go to Hawaii. For one reason, it was because it was over a holiday. For the second reason, once my mind is made up, nothing can hold me back! The holiday was Thanksgiving. Our office got out early on Wednesday, so I was on my way to the airport. It seems that my flight got into Honolulu in the late afternoon. I was staying at the Outrigger Reef on the Beach. I had a nice huge room to myself and, yes, it’s right on the beach. At that time, I was into collecting the works of Kim Taylor Reece and Randy Jay Braun; both are photographers who specialize in photos of hula dancers. On the ground floor of my hotel was a store specializing in prints and posters, many of them by those two photographers. When I stopped by to check out their inventory, the salesman was not only friendly and helpful, but he had a dazzling smile and was very attractive. For a moment, I thought he might be flirting with me. Then again, I thought to myself, this is Hawaii, where everyone is extremely friendly and nice; I must be imagining things. I didn’t buy anything that day; just wanted to see what was available and save my shopping for the final day.
The next day was Thanksgiving. To be honest, I don’t really recall what my day entailed. I had my Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant on the hotel grounds; nothing special. I’m almost positive that part of my afternoon was spent drinking at the Mai Tai Bar at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. I may have run around taking photos of landmarks and doing a little window shopping.
Friday was my last day in paradise. Yes, you heard me – I only went to Hawaii for TWO nights! My flight was a red eye, though, which gave me the entire day to run around. All I know is that I went back to the store with the prints towards the end of the afternoon to make my decision on which ones I wanted. The same cute salesman was there. He asked where I’d been the previous day. He had a turkey sandwich for me from Thanksgiving! What kind of person does that?! That was so sweet! That would never happen to me in San Francisco or Los Angeles (or probably most anywhere else). If my recollection is correct, he alluded to the fact that he’d wanted to see me the day before. I explained that I hadn’t been sure if he was flirting with me or he was simply being extra nice. “I was flirting with you!!!” he said. That certainly made my day! He was getting off work shortly, so we decided to have drinks together somewhere in the hotel. Maybe it was Shorebird; don’t quite remember. Actually, we had quite a few drinks together. He’s the person who introduced me to Surfers on Acid, as well as to Italian Surfers on Acid (though for the life of me, I can’t remember what are in those!). He was disappointed to hear that my flight out was that night; I was disappointed to hear that he had to leave to go to another job! He tried to talk me into taking a flight on another day. There wasn’t anything available, though. I’d already tried that with the airlines earlier; they assured me that there were no available seats on an outbound flight until Monday. If I missed all or part of Monday, that wouldn’t go over well with my boss at my new job! I tried to talk him into not going to his second job, but he insisted that he had to. So much for all of that flirting and anticipation… Before we parted, we did manage to share a kiss. It was quite a kiss, too. This may seem strange to you, but when he kissed me, my heart was pounding and all these visions of old Hawaii ran through my head. I’d never felt quite like that before. It was blood to blood, or more specifically, Polynesian/Pacific Islander blood to Polynesian/Pacific Islander blood. Now I’ve certainly been kissed by Polynesian men before, but this one was special. I never forgot that kiss or that feeling; always wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten on that plane or if he hadn’t gone off to that second job. Although we never saw each other again (but kept in touch for a little while), I think about him every so often… always with a smile and much aloha.