There are places on this earth whose beauty is impossible to capture in photographs. I’ve been told by an Indian friend that no place on earth could possibly compare to Kashmir. I’m sure that’s true but I doubt I’ll ever get there. My two places would be Hanalei on the northern tip of Kaua’i and Yosemite Valley. Neeta didn’t have a second place. It was hands down the Kashmir and no place else. How about you?
Presenting … a small slice of Hanalei
Before you reach the town, stop at the Nourish Cafe – a grass shack selling mostly smoothies and other healthy snacks. It’s at the end of a dead end road, hard to find but when you see the view, I think you’ll agree, worth the trouble.Hanalei Valley – where kayaks can cruise up and down the river in a jungle like setting.Hanalei Bay. Watching the shadows shift as the clouds passed over the mountains was like listening to a symphony.Hanalei Beach and Pier – the sand wasn’t nearly as nice as Lumaha’i but the waters were a lot friendlier and the views – wow! Rarely a day goes by without at least a bit of rain but when the weather is 81 degrees, who cares! Of course, I did my share of cloud surfing.The boy preferred the Hanalei River where he caught and released all kinds of fish.
I have no idea what kind of tree this once was but there’s a forest of her kind near the river.
Some are used as memorials. If you’re lucky, you may get a peak at one of the many waterfalls.
I will admit, the town of Hanalei has gotten more touristy than it was the last time I was here. The bars are noisy and less quaint. Especially at this time of year. The Hawaiians really love Halloween.
Yikes! I do believe it’s possible to overdo things. Perhaps the crew had a few too many Mai Tais before the decorating began!
This is one of the places I really wanted to see on the island of Kauai. Quite obviously, it is a beach. But why, at eleven in the morning on a sunny day (practically unheard of on the northern coast of that island) is it practically abandoned? Especially as a famous scene from a movie musical released way back in the late 1950s was filmed here.
I know, I know. Some of you weren’t even born back then and who cares about musicals? Well, having no television, I grew up on recordings of all the great musicals and, at one point, had all of the songs memorized! On snowy days, my sister and I often reenacted this scene in our drab living room, imagining we were on an island in the middle of the South Pacific so very far away.
As to the question of why this beach is practically abandoned, well, it isn’t easy to get to. The two lane coastal road leading from Hanalei to the Lumaha’i Beach is often washed out or in constant repair. There are many one lane bridges meaning you have to wait your turn (minding the Hawaiian rule of “five cars”). And, once you get there, the parking lot is a mud and boulder-filled pit only suitable for Jeeps and the off-shore currents are notoriously deadly.
I can’t imagine how they managed to get all the film crew and their equipment to this spot way back when. There’s got to be a story there!
Where do you want to go next? More beaches or back to the Bowery circa 1968?
Just a quick note as I am off to Hanalei, Kauai tomorrow morning. Hopefully. Wish me luck. If we do make it I’ll post lots of pictures of the Garden Isle. I’ve only been there once … unfortunately to assist my step-mother after my father’s unexpected death many years ago. No doubt it’s probably more crowded and touristy – isn’t everyplace?
This is an Oahu chicken but there are plenty on Kauai as well.
I leave you with a link to this lovely review of Happy Hour and Other Sorrows by a remarkable South African blogger, writer, artist and gifted photographer, Roberta Eaton Cheadle. I call her Robbie, I hope she doesn’t mind.
Hard to believe, but we’ve made it to the tenth month of the year 2025.
In Japan it appears to be a quiet month with only the 13th (Sports Day) as a holiday. From what I’ve read online, a few years back the Japanese instituted Happy Mondays (second Monday of each month) as a way to alleviate the stress of returning to work. Not all Happy Mondays are national holidays but people are encouraged to celebrate them in some way or another.
This month’s flower is a complete mystery to me. The nearest match I could find was the Japanese WIndflower about to bloom.
This flower is classified as an anemone (from the Greek for the tears of Aphrodite as she mourned the loss of Adonis). Depending on which language of flowers you ascribe you, they can bring luck or protect against evil, portend rain or symbolize anticipation. Like many beautiful things, you don’t want to eat the darn things!
Can you see the woman in this cloud structure?
For me this portends to be a busy month. Oct 2, 11, 18, 24, 26 and 27 are birthdays that need to be remembered and celebrated (and I’m sure I forgot someone!) Next week we attempt a trip to Kauai and with luck, the Napali Coast. So I better get busy. Have a great month everyone!
Recap thus far: Daniel convinces the girls that they will be safe at his friend Marcia’s place and that it’s not too long a walk. However halfway on their journey he hears one of the girls call out in distress and turns to see …
“Oh baby, baby,” the behemoth moaned as he dragged the girl back into his alley like a long lost Teddy Bear tucked under his arm. “Come with Daddy.”
Henry Clarke Illustration for The Mystery of Marie Roget by EA Poe
“Let me go,” she screamed heaving a guitar case into his chest. He twisted the case from her hand and threw it to the ground.
“Come on now, honey bunches,” he laughed, “be good to your man.”
Find something to distract him, Daniel thought looking around for a board or brick. The creature was nearly seven feet tall and had draped himself in a mountain of shredded blankets and rugs. In his world, and according to his set of ethos, he’d been able to nap a sweet young thing who’d wandered directly into his web and, per the rules of the streets, she was his. A gift from the heavens! Sweet nectar to ward off a dark and rainy night! Daniel knew that nothing he had to offer could compare. The other two girls began assaulting the beast with pillowcases full of clothes which he laughed off. To a man his size they were nothing more than yapping pups who could be slammed against the brick walls and kicked to the curbs when they were no longer entertaining.
Somehow the captive girl managed to reach into her coat and withdraw a crucifix.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” She thrust the cross into the creature’s face. “Pray for us sinners now and at the moment of our death.” His eyes widened. What’s this bauble my pet dangles in my face? But after he recognized the symbol he flung his head back and howled with laughter. Daniel froze. The girls froze. The creature seemed to be expanding! Growing taller and wider, his laughter now a cruel wail evoking stray dogs to join in from their dark and distant corners. The girl continued on: “Holy Mary, Mother of God …”
And this is hell, Daniel thought. But … the laughter soon shook loose the phlegm trapped in the creature’s lungs, and, choking on spittle, he began hacking so violently that he had no choice but to release the girl and lean into a nearby wall to gasp for breath.
“A crucifix isn’t going to save you down here, Catholic!” Daniel said, pulling the girl away from her awe-struck stance. “It just distracted him for a minute. Grab your stuff and let’s get out of here … “
“I’m not a Catholic!”
“Her mother’s a Catholic,” Venus of the Sewers said. “She’s what they call a …”
“Run!” There was no time for meaningless debate. Run! And run they did … right down the middle of the street … their shoes sounding like heartbeats on the cobblestone streets. Each time they tried to stop for breath, Daniel urged them on. On and on until they reached a neighborhood that had not been completely abandoned to night creatures. Here and there were pockets of light; storefronts that were only gated for the night and not boarded up forever, lights in the windows on the upper floors and even a car or two rolling past at a normal speed. “Okay … we’re almost there. We can stop for a second.” The rain had softened to a light mist. Even the sky seemed lighter. Gradually his heart stopped thumping in his ear like an out of control freight train and, as it did, he heard … the sound of evening prayers.
“At least they haven’t moved,” he said.
“Who? What’s that sound?”
“It sounds like bells.”
“No wind chimes.”
“You’ll see.”
They rounded the corner of Marcia’s street and sure enough. There they were, twirling and chanting in the light shining onto the street from storefront windows. Dozens of men, women and children in white robes oblivious to the mist, any passing cars, and the behemoths who hid in dark alleyways, shaking their bells and bangles in celebration of the Great God Krishna.
“Behold the International Institute of the Hari Krishnas! Marcia lives behind the Institute. Follow me closely and don’t look any of them in the eye otherwise you will be lost forever.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Ha! Compared to the fervor of a dedicated Krishna, that chap we tangled with earlier was a rank amateur!”
Next (in a couple of weeks as I am going on vacation): Evening Prayers and Things Better off Unsaid
Those of you who’ve been following along have probably guessed this is the story of Sandy and Nora from The Face in the Background (the first episode) and their adventures in New York City as young women. It would be lovely to think that, with the help of his friend Marcia, Daniel will be able to convince these silly girls to go home. It would be lovely but do you think that’s what’s going to happen?
To recap: Daniel can’t abandoned the three girls who, desperate for gas, have driven up to the service station where he works after closing. He considers walking them to a Catholic refuge he knows well and then remembers he knows someone who lives closer. The heavy mist is turning to rain, the temperatures are dropping fast and the ghost ships have begun their nightly quest for new crew members, or so say the winos.
And now, The Behemoth …
“I have a friend you can crash with for the night. It’s not too far and you’ll be safe.” Daniel said.
The girls stared at him mutely. “She’s a social worker.” His socks were wet. The next time his mother came to town he decided that he’d show her the holes in his shoes. She’d insist on buying him at least two pairs of new shoes, one of which he would give to the first shoe-less street person he met, of course. That would make her happy. She wanted Jesus as a son but a well dressed Jesus, not a scruffy one.
“What choice do you have? You can’t sleep in the car. Not in this neighborhood.”
“But are you sure she won’t mind having strange people in her place?”
“No. Not Marcia. I’ve known her a long time. But hurry up and decide.” Daniel knew what happened after dark in that part of town. The needy and vague-eyed — from drink or drug or mental illness — materialized from the crevices of abandoned buildings, crying and moaning and demanding money while in the distance sirens wailed, but always in the distance. A loud crack echoed in the alley across the street, probably just a trashcan being emptied for use as shelter from the rain, but it sounded like gunfire.
“Okay.” They mumbled and began unloading their valuables from the car. One of the girls handed Daniel a terracotta sculpture of a young man’s head. “This is Aragorn. He goes everywhere with us.”
“You know, from the Lord of the Rings.”
“Aragorn?” The thing weighed a ton.
“Oh yeah? Leave him here. No one is going to steal him. I know what. He can be Aragorn, Defender of the Volvo.” Giggling they set the sculpture down on the driver’s seat where in the dim light it looked like a severed head.
Loaded down with guitars and pillowcases filled with clothes, the girls followed Daniel as he navigated sidewalks littered with broken glass, past boarded up storefronts and trash-filled alleyways, always careful not to step into gutters filled with urine and blood and vomit and even worse. He felt like he was leading a trio of ducklings to their doom. Wide-eyed, unfocused, gullible ducklings. Every now and then they heard a scream or a car screeching on the rain-slicked streets, normal sounds for that part of the city but he could tell from the gasps behind him, they would not last long in the city.
Soon they would be begging to return home to a safe suburb where the lights are out by ten and the police have little more to do than investigate mailbox crime. Especially if Marcia worked her social worker magic.
And than it dawned on him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Marcia. One summer had passed, at least. Maybe two. During that time, he’d moved many times. Maybe she had too. Maybe she’d married and moved to the suburbs. Maybe she’d died. Maybe he’d be forced to walk the girls all the way to Father Frank’s. Maybe that was a better plan in the first place. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
His moment of existential crisis was broken by a loud scream: “LET ME GO!”
He turned and his blood froze. The Behemoth had grabbed one of the girls and was dragging her into a dark alley.
Illustration for Murders of Rue Morgue by Henry Clarke
A recap thus far: Daniel, an obviously well-educated young man, works at a gas station in the Bowery at a time (1969) when that area of Manhattan (NYC) was considered the deadliest part of town. One rainy evening, he steps into the phone booth to make a call. He hears a rapping on the glass doors and assumes that some poor soul is looking for shelter from the rain. But …
It was a girl.A girl with a Botticelli face dressed in bell-bottoms and a pea jacket standing in the steam rising from the sewers. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
Untitled by Sandro Botticelli
“What are you doing here?”Daniel demanded as he stepped out of the phone booth and into the drizzle.
“We really need gas. We got lost driving around the city and then we saw your station.”
“We?”
“My friends and I.”
“There are more of you?”One was bad enough.
“Yes, they’re in the car.”
Runaways, oh lord, runaways, he thought.The city was swamped with runaways, all trying to find Greenwich Village and Bob Dylan. Instead, if they were lucky, they ended up at Father Frank’s calling their parents for money for a return trip home.If they weren’t lucky, they were used and spit out by the godless ones, left to sit on the doorsteps of brownstones, selling oranges or themselves.
“You girls shouldn’t even be in this part of town.” He followed her to their car, a hump-back Volvo with Nevada plates. “You need to get back in your car and leave. This is the Bowery.”
“But, you don’t understand. We’re really out of gas. We’ve been driving on empty for at least an hour!”
Empty, out of gas, out of luck, lost.Probably hungry, dirty andon each other’s nerves. But he couldn’t help.His hands were tied.“Look,” he explained, “I can’t sell you gas even if I wanted to. The owner has locked up the pumps and gone home and I don’t have the keys.”
“Oh.Is there another gas station around here?”
“Not in this part of town!”
Couldn’t they see where they were?The dilapidated brick buildings, storefronts boarded up, trash and broken glass filling the gutters.Were they blind to all of that?“They all close at sunset anyway.No one stays open after dark down here.”
By now the other two had fallen from the car and stood over him.They were so like the girls who arrived every spring after the rye grass had exploded and formed a chartreuse chastity belt around the seminary. Arriving with their families to see the Passion Play.Girls who came bearing homemade brownies and yeast rolls in their Easter dresses, their long hair flowering, their voices echoing against the tile walls.Such a flutter of activity that made buckling down for year-end exams ever more difficult.
Passion Play circa 1966ish courtesy of Layton Damiano
But they were far from the seminary. Venus of the Sewers spoke first: “Is there a cheap hotel nearby where we can spend the night?”
“You girls don’t want to stay in any of the hotels around here.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not prostitutes, are you?”
“What?”
“You’re not prostitutes are you?”
”No!”
“Then you don’t want to stay in the hotels around here.”
Damn. He had to do something. He couldn’t just leave them at the station.They’d never survive the night, hunkered down in that small car with winos banging on the steamed windows, begging to be let in for a warm place to sleep.Maybe he should march them down to Father Frank’s.They could sleep on the hard wooden benches beneath paintings of saints, and early in the morning have breakfast with the Father:hard boiled eggs and slices of white bread, strong Lipton tea and, a stern lecture.In the name of all that is holy, go home to your parents.
But St. Marks was on the other side of the Village.By the time they got there —if they got there — they would be soaked to the bone, chilled and susceptible to all kinds of city rot.Still, what choice did he have? And then he remembered Marcia’s place.
The best thing about being an early riser is … of course … greeting the sun.
Seven AM and fog still clings to the coastal hills. It’s 54 degrees out there folks!
Forty-five minutes later and the sun decides to mount an offense.
8:32 and … yup … it’s gonna be a sunny day. Time to wash the sheets and hang them to dry.
Captain Kitty and his co-pilot Dog are raring to go. 64 degrees but it will get hotter soon.
Many thanks to all of you who are following #Storytime. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me. Tomorrow we find out what lurks just outside the phone booth waiting for Daniel …
A recap of the story so far: A woman named Sandy has been invited to an art exhibit/memorial for a childhood friend. Once there she’s told by the woman’s son that, although the two women had drifted apart, there was something in each of his mother’s final and very disturbing paintings that she specifically wanted Sandy to see, a face from long ago. October of 1969 to be precise.
Out trespasser! Leave this body before you’re trapped! He’d landed with a thud in a strange body but perhaps there was still time.
“What the sam hill are you doing, Daniel? Quit standing in the rain and get out of here while youse still can.”
The man yelling at him stood silhouetted in the doorway of a squat brick building as darkness licked him from all sides. He looked tiny in that square of light, and that square of light looked tiny surrounded by the dark shells of once grand hotels, now melting the rain. He felt wet and cold. The heavy book in his hands was alien to him, although it was attached by a thick metal chain to the phone booth.
“Go home Daniel, for Christ’s sake, before it gets too dark!”
Aha! He remembered. The man was his boss. The man cared about him and that kindness had brought him back.
“A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure!” Now all facts pertaining to this life became clear to him. True, the forgetting had been a reprieve, albeit short. Praise God. But now he’d returned and on his horizon the shutdown of the gas station had begun. The lights, one after the one, going dark. The doors padlocked; the windows shuttered and soon the boss would fire up all four cylinders of his Galaxy and race to the relative safety of the Bronx.
A home. That’s what Daniel had been looking for in the heavy book. Well, not really a home home but a monk’s cell, cheap and anonymous, somewhere he could ponder the next move in his life of dedicated impermanence.
From Bing images
The rain fell in droplets smudging the ink and wilting the paper. There’s something sacred about a book, especially a book filled with the names of the living and the things that gave their life purpose, a home, a profession, something permanent. To let it be damaged by the elements was clearly immoral so he stepped into the phone booth and closed the folding door, triggering a faint bit of light from overhead. It was not enough to read by, especially through lenses coated with axle grease. He removed his glasses and tried to clean them with the inside of his tee shirt. This effort brought his world into clearer focus yet triggered another dilemma. Where in Manhattan would he find a monk’s cell other than at a priory? Perhaps the YMCA? And if so, would it be listed under YMCA or Young Men’s Christian Association? A quick investigation proved it was under neither. He moved on to the Yellow Pages. Would YMCA be under Lodgings or Gyms? Nope. Wrong again.
“I’ll just dial directory assistance,” he said aloud as he sorted through his linty pockets for a dime or quarter with which to call the operator. There was no time to figure out the complexities of the phone book. The ghost ships had already begun their nightly prowl, floating up from the Hudson and down the abandoned streets and alleyways of the Bowery looking for new crew members. The winos claimed the ships hid in the mist and only revealed themselves to those about to die.
He found a quarter —Praise God! — and was about to use it when he heard a desperate cry: “Hello? Anyone here?”
A shadow stood in the mist near the gas pumps. Spotting the lit phone booth, the shadow moved toward it like a moth to a flame. Some poor creature looking for shelter, he thought as he turned his back and dialed the operator.
“Directory Assistance.”
The shadow rapped gently against the glass door.
“Don’t worry. When I’m finished you can have this shelter for the night. I’ll not fight you for it,” he said loudly without turning.
“Directory Assistance?” The operator said again. “Have you –“
“I’m looking for the address of the Y-M-C-A closest to the East Village,” he said.
The Chinatown Y on Hudson, he was told. Did they rent rooms? She didn’t know but offered to patch him through. Brring, brring. He could feel the creature on the other side of the glass burning holes into the back of his head. Turn. See me!
“Don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon. Honest.”
Ten rings and finally someone answered. Yes, they had rooms. “Praise the Lord,” he muttered as he hung up and turned to face whatever waited.
Saying nothing in particular 