The Kwaj Kat Blog

I just read an article on CNN’s website this evening that Aloha Airlines is officially going out of business beginning Monday. Apparently they plan to continue their cargo flights, but passenger service will be suspended due to competition and fuel costs. They were already in bankruptcy, and were simply unable to come out of it. Aloha and Hawaiian Airlines were mainstays of our travel among the islands in the 70s, so it makes me sad to see one of them fold.

Moving to a new home thousands of miles away from the only home you’ve ever known while starting 4th grade in a new school can be quite a lot to adjust to, and the last thing you expect is to wind up in a classroom full of magicians and mind-readers. It’s a fairly intimidating and humbling experience. Read the rest of this entry »

I discovered today that the gallery has new photos from Carolyn Eck Russell. Thanks Carolyn! I hope to begin scanning some recently rediscovered photos of my own this weekend, starting with some black-and-white negatives. I also have 70+ color slides that are worth posting, but those will take longer since I intend to have them professionally scanned given that my scanner won’t do a very good job with them. I’m expecting some additional submissions from John Fiske too, so keep checking back for new stuff!

While reviewing more of the recent online Hourglass editions, I ran across an article in the October 6 issue that an old Kwaj icon is now officially closed: the Yokwe Yuk Club. Kwaj seems to be going through a transition period involving cost-cutting and consolidation, and the Yuk fell under the hatchet. I’d heard from a current Kwaj resident some time ago that the Yuk was already partially shut down, as the kitchen was no longer in operation, but the facility itself was still in use (although she reported that it wasn’t in good condition). Given its already minimalized status, I guess it’s no big surprise that someone decided to axe it in order to save some money. As a Kwaj Kid, the Yuk was not a frequent destination for me, but it makes me sad nonetheless to hear of its demise. According to the article, it was scheduled to close October 31. Just wanted to pass along the news.

If you don’t often check out the online issues of the Hourglass, you might find the October 20 issue interesting as it contains a short article about Kwaj “then and now.” A Kwaj Kid from the 60s visited Kwaj recently and took some photos to show the island today compared to how it appeared in old postcards from the 50s and 60s. I wish the Hourglass had more room to post more of his pictures. Anyway, I think you might enjoy this article. Someday I’d like to visit again and take some updated pictures of my own…

In case anyone is still reading, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a fun, safe New Year! I sometimes think about this time of year and how it took some getting used to having Christmas on Kwaj while it still felt like summer outside. I didn’t think that much about it after that first Christmas in 1974, but that first one was a bit odd. Of course, nowadays in Huntsville we still don’t always have cold weather for Christmas, and in fact today’s temps will be in the 60s, unseasonably warm for December. It’s supposed to cool off by next week, though, so it’ll probably feel more normal by Christmas Eve. Anyway, I hope the end of 2007 is a good experience for you all.

Hot on the heels of Wanda’s Kwaj Kids Reunion in Dallas a few months ago, Shermie Wiehe is cooking up a general Kwaj Reunion 2008 to be held in Colorado Springs. There are a LOT of people signed up for this one, but most are folks who spent their adults years on Kwaj and not kids that I would know so I’m not likely to go myself. I’m posting a note about it here, though, to help Shermie spread the word.

Of perhaps more interest to me was some recent email from John Fiske that many of you probably got as well. In it he raised the idea of a Kwaj Kids reunion focused on classes from the 1980s, possibly in the 2008 or 2009 timeframe. The location of this reunion is not set, but he mentioned some ideas like Cancun or various hot spots along the US Gulf Coast. I really like this idea, but will probably be prevented from participating unless it’s somewhere REALLY cheap. We’ll be in the poor house starting next year when my son begins his college years, and probably won’t have much time or money to spend on a reunion event.

Anyway, these are two good ideas that I felt were worth passing along here to the small audience I have. Every little bit helps spread the word.

This blog is certainly not under consideration for any awards bestowed on websites for burning up the Internet with sheer volume. While the first month or two was fairly active, the post rate quickly dropped back to an average of one a month, which doesn’t really even qualify it as a blog at all since most bloggers post daily, if not hourly. Still, when you look back since last year when it first went online, I have slowly collected a respectable number of Kwaj anecdotes that more or less define my island experience. What I don’t often think about is how young I was, and how unique and significant an experience it must’ve been to have made this kind of lasting impression on someone my age. Read the rest of this entry »

As with my previous post about the photo gallery, I’m now beginning to get bogus registrations on this blog. I’d hoped to have others register here and post their own recollections on Kwaj life, but aside from Kevin’s single post last year no one else has stepped up. I’m still hoping some of you may consider adding your experiences to this website, but for now I’m going to disable the automatic registration process to avoid any further spam registrations, most of which don’t even come from this country.

If you don’t plan to post, you don’t need to register anyway since anonymous visitors can see everything there is to see here. However, if any of you decide to add your flavor to what I’ve started here, please just email me and I’ll create an account you can use to post your own thoughts about Kwaj life. I hope some of you will.

Those of you on Kwaj in the early to mid-70s probably remember that Colonel Russell was the island commander at the time. His son David was in my grade, and we were good friends in high school when we both returned to Huntsville. I got word yesterday that Colonel Russell’s wife Gloria (David’s mom) passed away this week. I didn’t know her especially well, but I used to see her whenever I’d drop by David’s house during my high school years, and she always made me feel welcome. Her funeral will be tomorrow in Huntsville at Good Shepherd Church.