The Mail-Journal, Volume 6, Number 6, Milford, Kosciusko County, 12 March 1969 — Page 10

THE MAIL-JOURNAL —Wed., Mar. 12, 1969

2

Report To The Home Folks

Hawaiian Jubilee Can Be Fun - But Expensive

"Aloha, at your service,” came the sweet, melodious voice over the hotel telephone. This was enough to tell one — particularly a country boy from a small Indiana town — that he was indeed in a different land, a land of swaying grass skirts and enchantment. All this dawned on me as I reclined on the hotel bed in shorts, with hand behind head, savoring the first moments of what was to be a two-week trip in the capital of our 50th state — beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii. The call was to reach Jack Stump, a Milford boy stationed in Hawaii. All turned out well and Jack and his new bride, Christine, were able to meet with our party for dinner on our first night there. Perhaps the island of Oahu hadn’t seen such a wide-eyed group of mainland tourists as made up our Elks-sponsored Hawaiian Jubilee in many a moon, but certainly others would be arriving who would see this enchanting place with equal amazement. Our information is that 3,000 tourists leave the west coast of the United States daily to visit Hawaii and, judgin’ from the rate cf growth of Oahu and neighboring Hawaii, not nearly this many return. Our party left Indianapolis on Saturday, Feb. 15, in a Whisper Jet for Pittsburgh, Pa., where the entire Hawaiian Jubilee package was put together. A quick stop at Dayton. Ohio, and then to Pittsburgh in a little over an hour. Who ever heard of an airplane that could haul 252 passengers, six stewardesses and a crew of four? Well, there is such a bird, the largest one that flies, and it appeared a never-ending line of passeneers boarded the huge craft. With four pieces of luggage each, this made 1,000 pieces of luggage! ’ -’ • ‘ Certainly this "would not fly, but let me assure the home folks the craft does fly . . . and. oh, how smooth. It took a mere four hours in the smooth jet stream for this big.bird to reach the west coast and come in for a feather-smooth landing in Oakland, Calif., just across ■ the storied Oakland Bay Bridge from San Francisco. ’ While our party of eight was made ud of this writer and his wife Della, John and Marie Fisher of Warsaw, and Al and Joan Moss and Gene and Marjorie Brim of Flora, it’s truly amazing how a group bent on enjoying a fun-filled vacation can get acquainted. This was especially true after the thoughtful stewardesses passed the aperitif at midflight. Added quickly to our tight circle were Marvin and Helen Lynch of Alexandria. Jim and Helen Little of Kendallville, and seated right ahead of us on the plane were Mr. and Mrs. Carl Myzarik of Columbia City. It w turned out Carl is chief engineer at the Whitley Products plant in Pierceton. It’s amazing how a spirit of camaraderie will spread when one wants to loosen up a little! San Francisco Our group arrived in Oakland International at about 8 p.m. and was bussed across the big bridge to the Sheraton Palace which became our headquarters for the next three days. You've heard about the cable cars and Fisherman’s Wars? Os course you have. These -were first stops, and off we went to the Powell street cable line. Edging up steep Powell street. John Fisher and I were hanging oh for dear life. "Did that cable ever break and this thing get loose.” I asked’ Without cracking a smile the young conductor said. "Every day!" A street snack of crab meat proved tasty, but only served to wet our appetite for a meal at A Sabellas, a well known Wars eating house. "The food was good.” John Fisher said, “but oyster soup at 52.50 a bowl?" Our group had a number of recommended things we could do in San Francisco, and one included dining at George Mardikian’s Omar Khayyam’s, mecca of the famous and great. While we saw none of the famous or great, the Armenian food proved a delight, and we were told by the courtly Matre ’de that we were eating their famous shish kebab 'lamb* and piaff 'fried rice l that had delighted am-

Ml set'l ? I A NIGHT OUT — Shown here Al and Joan Moss of Flora and Arch and Della Baumgartner of Milford are discussing the menu with the Matre ’de at the Byron II Steak House at the Ala Moana shopping center in Honolulu. With the group on this occasion was John Hinkle, former Flora resident who now operates a photo service in Honolulu, and he just happened to bring his camera along.

bassadors and kings. Well, you can’t hardly beat that! At any rate, immigrant George Mardikian who made the Omar Khayyam famous is the man who told General Eisenhower to take the VD posters off tfrp army mess hall walls, to fry rhe rice and call it piaff and all would go better in the army mess. His culinary fame is well known to the epicure. Another thing: San Francisco is the home of the famous (or is it infamous?) topless night clubs, and if you Want to pay the price,' Broadway arid its glimmering, shimmering night life is the place for you. Or maybe you’d prefer a shoe shine by a topless mademoiselle. We found the price too high and the action too frustrating. Another night on the town took us to three night clubs, the first in the huge ballroom of the wonderfully elaborate Freemont Hotel, just across from the Mark Hopkins Hotel where everyone must go to the “Top Os The Mark.” We found the Freemont ornately decorated with rich appointments. marble from Italy, deeply carpeted. Their top floor is high atop Knob Hill and provides a view over the Gold Coast city that is fabulous and breathtaking. At the Freemont we saw the tuneful Mills Brothers who were extraordinary. Then to a dingy, dark basement club called the Purple Onion where Mort Sol and the Smothers Brothers got their start. We felt they could have done better and they did. Then on to Finoccios, where a review featured men dressed as women. I wasn’t prepared for this one. To tell the truth I nodded a bit .. . in fact, quite a bit. I told Della, “No wonder I’m sleepy, it’s 2*30, and that’s 5:30 back home.” We also ate at a Japanese restaurant and after some hot Sake < which provided our sock-it-to-me for the evening), a vain attempt at chop sticks and Oriental food, we lazily lumbered back up the steep hill to the Sheraton Palace, and good night As nice a three-hour trip ai anvone ever enjoyed was our delight bn Tuesday morning, Feb. 18. In spite of a persistant rain, we were treated to a tour of the city of San Francisco and a professional explanation by a limosine chauffeur. His tour was relaxed and enlightening. We saw considerable of what is certainly a fine American city ... ineluding the beards of HaightAsbury. On Wednesday. Feb. 19, we again boarded the Universal DCB- - at Oakland, and at noon we were going down the runway with seat belts fastened and fingers crossed. Hawaii It took another four hours of nothing but water and fleecywhite clouds before we approached Oahu far out in the blue Pacific. This is a lot of sitting still in a cramped seat, but again the aperitif helped. A trip by bus into Honolulu quickly told us we were in a different land. It was balmy, and we sauntered with a lighter step.

By ARCH BAUMGARTNER

rain coat over our shoulder, hal in hand. We longed for a crew cut again. A water tower in the shape of a pineapple told us something. We took this welcome sign literally, and ate our fill of pineapple during our stay. Our group landed like a cloud of prairie locusts on the Imperial Hawaii Hotel on Lewers street, and it was quickly evident the three small elevators were not enough to serve the 25 floors of the incompleted hotel. Since we were only on the sixth floor, this party mads- good l use of an unfinished back stairway, and we found it expeditious. Our eight-day stay in Honolulu was wonderful, but they were

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days of overcast, quick, light rains, and constant winds. For ‘ an old salt who likes to swim, this was no deterent to my main objective. But there was something else: Hie famed Waikiki Beach is coral strewn, and believe me, this stuff is sharp, jagged and hard. Did you know coral grows? I surely didn’t until told so. Al Moss, Flora and Delphi publisher, and I were the only two of our party to swim, and we managed to go in each day. The water was nice and invigorating. The sun eluded us most of the time, but when it did come out it was hot and quickly burned one. One day, when John and Marie Fisher and Della and I rented a car and toured the island (it’s only 25 miles wide and 45 miles long at the far points) we stopped near the famous “Blow Hole” and I went swimming in the huge waves. I thought, “How wonderful,” until one such wave tossed me up and deposited me, knee first, on a hard piece of coral. This hurt, stiffened my knee, and that night in a supper club we joked with a waitress about me being an army R and R visitor. She said I could only receive R and R benefits if I produced my card. No card. We dined in the island’s oldest plush hotel, the Royal Hawaiian, it’s newest, the Hi Kai, and visited perhaps its tallest, the La Ronde. Again, we had a delicious dinner at the top of the Hi Kai, ascending to this perch via an elevator with a glasseAjn outside exposure. Another night we ate in the basement of the Hi Kai, in a place called the Hong Kong Junk. Polynesian style. If ever I open a restaurant I think I’ve found the secret: Keep the lights low, the music soft and the price high! The Kodak people, always pushing film, provided free of charge a colorful native dance routine for shutterbugs, and, it was wonderful. It’s about all we found that was free. Our advice: don’t miss it. We signed up for a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center which we liked very much. Some native craft and customs of inhabitants of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Maori, Tahiti, New Zealand, and other Polynesian islands were displayed and explained, after which we had our choice of a Polynesian dinner or an American dinner. We went native again. Then, after that, students from the Morman university nearby did a. number of native dance routines that were graceful and enlivened by colorful lighting. We enjoyed that. We also enjoyed our bus driver to and from the Cultural Center.

He called us “Cousins.” stating "After all, we have the same uncle.” He told us Hawaiian legends about the countryside we visited, and en route home had us singing like a bunch of boy scouts on a Saturday afternoon camp outing. This fellow had to be one of the most generously tipped guides on the island. Well, everybody visits the International Trade Market and the new Ala Moana shopping center where 8,000 cars can be parked. We visited the Punchbowl Crater National Memorial Cemetery where thousands of soldiers are buried, including the famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle. His burial marker is in a row with others, but the grass is dead around Pyle’s marker, indicating heavy traffic to his burial site. He was only 45 when a sniper bullet resulted in his death on Iwo Jima. Our eye was attracted to a page one feature in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin one morning when a volcanic crater on the island of Hawaii erupted. A picture showed the molten lava erupting and burbling, and in another photo it showed snow skiers on a mountain top. The caption said the two photos were taken “only a few miles apart.” Besides visiting Jack Stump, we saw his brother, Jerry Me Clintic, who is also stationed in Honolulu. Jerry, in the navy about nine months, turned up a driver for an Admiral. What a sinecure! Jerry found time off to drive Mrs. Dottie Redman around the island. Mrs. Redman is owner of the Redman farm near New Salem and was a member of our party. The thrill of thrills, however, was a visit to Pearl Harbor. A boat excursion took us out into the Pacific and into the harbor. All cameras were locked up and our boat moved into the harbor slowly as the announcer colorfully relived the early morning attack of December 7, 1941 . . . which Franklin Roosevelt called a “day of infamy.” We passed the sunken ship Omaha where 58 are buried, and later the Arizona where 1,102 are entombed. This ship was never taken out of commission and Old Glory flies at full mast as though it were afloat and operable. If one has a sense of our nation’s history, this sight brings tears to one’s eyes. And this is interesting: As we were in Pearl Harbor, 12 Japanese Zero airplanes, with the

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Rising Sun emblazoned on wings and fuselage, dived into the harbor time and again. We were told a movie company is filming a movie to be called “Tora, Tora, Tora.” Tora was the Japanese cede name for the sneak attack. Dummy airplanes, Holl} woodstyle were seen around the Harbor. The backsides looked like Hollywood buildings when one was behind them. The Zeros had lights flashing in machine gun wing positions to simulate gunfire. Thrilling. This is a movie I want to see. I talked with a cab driver who said he was a native of Honolulu and was 12 at the time of the December 7 raid. He said, "We all thought it was some kind of fireworks, and what great fun it was. We went up to our school which was on high grow d and watched with real glee. Later we learned the truth,” he said. The driver told me, to this day the natives don’t know why the Japs failed to invade the island. “They could have,” he said, “and w’ould not have lost hardly a life.” So, on the 26th of February it was Aloha to Hawaii and back to the big DCB-Super. We w°re soon out over the Pacific again, heading for Las Vegas, Nevada, and a five-hour trip, the longest of our tour. Now we were going against the sun, and los ng two hours. A Moment in the Cabin I told a stewardess I was hoping to do a story on our trip and could I talk to the pilot. I can imagine what went thro igh her mind: “Who is this guy, a hijacker or something?” Well, I got in the cabin and talked to pilot Robert Gary of near Memphis. A fine fellow, he told me some of the statistics aoout the bird we were in. Can it Je possible that it takes 10 tons of fuel oil to get this thing off the ground and into the jet stream? That’s what the man said. And 450 gallons of fuel to taxi out on the runway? That’s what he said. The whole package weighed a third of a million poinds. He said, when the plane is loaded and off the ground, if it is forced to return to the field, it first has to dump its fuel due to excessive weight. It carries 24,000 gallons of fuel. Losing two hours in flight, we landed at Hughes (Howard, that is) airport at Las Vegas at 10 p.m. and the first thing to greet us inside the terminal is a long row of slot machines, back to back, the Vegas trademark. We were taken to the Sahara

Hotel, a Del Webb establishment. where we were given quite comfortable rooms on the 17th floor. Quick to unpack, we just had to see this “dream world” of the slot machine, roulette wheel, and free floor show. Did you ever hear of the game Baccarat? This is for the big spenders. We didn’t see them all, but tried to. Norm Crosby, the wordtwisting comic, appeared in the Sahara Lounge, then Don Rickels the next night in the dining room floor show with Robert Vinton, singer. We saw the Lido show, direct from Paris, at the Stardust, and this matched the Folies Bergere of Paris or the famed Bal Tabarine which G. I.s saw in World War II days just off the Montmarte. Would you believe nine different stages? Another night we saw Eddie Fisher, Frank Sinatra, Jr., and on our final night in town we dined atop the Dunes overlooking the fabulous city built on sand, dancing to the soft music of Russ Morgan. It kind of reminded one of the old Waco. Except the duck was $lO. We were happy to meet Ben and Marian Turner at Las Vegas and were the recipients of their most generous hospitality. Ben, formerly of Warsaw and in the late forties operator of the Hickory Lounge in Milford, provided us with a new Ford Galaxie while in Vegas. Ben has a car rental franchise at a Las Vegas army base and is doing well. He opened his home to a tired group of Hoosier tourists and made us welcome. We hesitate to give his address, that others won’t impose on him as we did, but it’s 1909 South 17th Street. We feel he’ll be glad to see other Hoosier friends. We also saw Garrett Fagan and Alice Barnett of Pasadena, Calif., who visited us in Las Vegas. Garrett is a former Milford resident. We continued to be amazed at so much money so freely handled as we saw in Las Vegas. And such opulence! Caesar’s Palace, a new hotel and casino with unbelievably rich appointments, is soon to be topped by the International. What next? We found the magic name is Howard Hughes and the magic word is money and speaking of money, our supply was dwindling with amazing speed. When 1 a.m. Saturday, March 1, arrived it was almost welcomed. By now we had just about had it.

Budd Buddles, our tour director, asked us how we liked the trip. “Good, but we’re tired”, was our less than enthusiastic comment. She did a fine job with a large, cumbersome group and has our thanks. We gave up our room in the Sahara at noon on Friday, and weren’t scheduled to take off until 1 a.m. Saturday, then a flight until 8 a.m. to Pittsburgh, and the loss of three hours. By now we found many a bit edgy and anxious to get home. Swollen ankles were commonplace. Our clothes were dirty, our pocketbooks empty. We found the tour’s the thing for an economy package, but one must surrender certain freedoms and join the group. Not to do this is to be miserable and consequently dissatisfied with much. Ona can never be sure he rated high marks in his ability to join the crowd. Four years in Uncle Sam’s army should have been good training for this type of group movement, but this was so long ago, we almost forgot. Did we have fun: Sure. Did we see a lot: You bet your life. Would we do it again: Os course, but not right away. As one member of our party said, “Certainly.” And as another said, “And I’m serious.” MILFORD LOCALS Roger Hollar called on Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hollar of r 2 Milford on Friday evening. Miss Joan Felkner of Milford spent Saturday night and Sunday with Miss Sue Brooks of Goshen. In an accident where both cars have State Farm collision tutt iti» coverage State Farm pays for damages to both cars. And you save the deductible iNsu»AHCi (usually SSO or S1G0). Call me: Glenn R. Morehead 2220 E. Winona Ave. Warsaw. Indiana 40580 Office Phone: 269-1315 Residence Phone: 267-2041 State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Cdmoanv Home Office Bloomington, Illinois