Author: Kurt

That’s me on the beach in Waikiki (Kuhio Beach to be exact). I put 1967 in the filename, but actually I’m not really sure when this picture was taken. At any rate, the late ’60’s. Suffice it to say, Waikiki looks completely different these days, and that half-constructed building in the background portends many things to come. This photo actually sent me off on a wild goose chase last night, trying to determine which hotel it was that is shown being built. In my ultimately fruitless search (it’s one of two hotels, as best as I can determine, but in the end it matters little), I came across this photo from 1999 which will give you some idea of the landscape changes Waikiki has gone through. (Coincidentally, this photo is from a personal site of someone who lives in the neighborhood I grew up in (Nuuanu), and whose children attend the same elementary school that I did (which I wrote about here)).

ADDENDUM: I later found some other photos taken on the same day, at the same beach. The above photo was taken in 1967.

My brother and I, either in ’69 or ’70. I’m the older one, on the left. The photo was taken by a friend of the family, and co-worker of my father, Jack Matsumoto (he also took the photo I featured here). Not much to comment on here, though I still remember vague elements of this day, of going to Mr. Matsumoto’s house somewhere up in the hills (I’m inclined to think Round Top Drive, in Honolulu), and running around in his yard and picking up guavas that had fallen from his trees.

I look at the photo, and I want to collapse the past 34-some years into nothing. Is it heretical to take a moment from looking ahead to feel some tinge of regret that I had to go on living past this point, that I couldn’t forever exist in this pre-aware state, ignorantly, blissfully picking up guavas?