Wednesday Wishes . . .

I wish I had a penny for all the memories I have lost. As Mark Twain said, “When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not . . .” Perhaps age does play a factor, but how can you keep those memories you still have alive? You can by creating your Family Museum.

The reason I am writing about this is because the other day my son Charlie asked me about the trip his father and I took to Hawaii many years ago. In fact, it was over thirty-eight years ago. And you know what? I couldn’t remember much about that vacation. He asked me if we took any pictures. I thought for sure we did, but after going through several photo albums from that time period, I couldn’t find one. Zilch!

So now I have to mentally recall that wonderful time since not only are there no photos, or least that I can find, I also have no keepsakes. However, I do remember getting two Hawaiian dolls for our daughter, who did not like them at all and were given away (I wish I still had them).

Feeling sad, I said to myself, there has got to be something that we bought and still have from that trip. So I wracked my brain and talked with my husband, who sometimes has a better memory then me. Putting our heads together, we remembered. The first memory was that of seeing the very popular entertainer, Don Ho and his show at the Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel. There he sang his hit song, Tiny Bubbles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlCiDEXuxxA    I recall his album being sold there, but we didn’t buy one. I bet if we did, we would still have it.

Other than the dolls, Keith bought himself a Hawaiian hat trimmed with Puka sea shells. That hat had seen its better day, but before it was discarded, the seashells were saved and now grace the fuzzy neck of Honey Bear. While on Maui we were thrilled to find vendors that sold fresh clams containing pearls. We knew this was a tourist thing but what the heck!

So I picked out my clam,

actually two clams because I wanted earrings, and lo and behold, I found the pearls, however, one was white and the other black. No earrings for me but when I got back home, I had them set into a ring that I still wear today. So the Puka shells are in the museum and I still wear my pearl ring. I guess we do have memories of Hawaii, but like Wednesday Wishes, I wish I had more.