Blog 2748 – 05.08.2023

Adventures In Paradise

My dad as a sailor in World War Two spent time in Honolulu, Hawaii. Twenty-nine years later in January of 1970 on my way to South Vietnam I spent a couple of hours there with plane load of jungle fatigue-clad soldiers as our plane refueled. Last summer my son and his wife were there on a week vacation celebrating their first year of marriage.

I am so glad and grateful that my son’s Hawaii experience was not a war-time story but a happier one. Jay and Lauren did visit the Battleship Arizona Memorial while there and even brought me a tee-shirt as a souvenir.

In 1959 there was a TV action series base on James Michener’s novel Adventures In Paradise. I, some years ago with a two months work assignment in Kenai, Alaska was able to tick off the fiftieth state on the list of states I have been visited. I grant you the two hour fuel stop in Hawaii was too brief to see much more than a few palm trees swaying in the breeze. Jay was only there one week and dad several months. The above picture is proof that he met at least one Hulu girl.

Many live there lives dreaming of paradise, thinking like Dorothy Gale from Kansas that it is somewhere over the rainbow or like Mister Michener’s stories to be found on some tropical island. But Jesus told the paradise seekers of his day, “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” No ship passage, hot air balloon, nor airplane ride is necessary, no need to even pack a bag.

In one of my favorite love story movies, An Affair To Remember, with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, there is a song called “How Do You Get To Tomorrowland?” I include a link to a brief clip from the song after today’s children story reading.

Your friend and fellow traveler in time, in space, and in paradise,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RGtxDuI0u-wr6q-h83A5jmSupOMkAGPW/view?usp=drivesdk

Maui-Maui

Deborah Kerr – “Tomorrow Land” from “An Affair to Remember”