Tag: family

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The Way Back

The last time I spent any decent time in Northern California was six years ago, and even then it wasn’t really a vacation. During that trip, I wandered around San Francisco by myself and remembered how much I truly loved that city.

For this visit, I decided to take an afternoon to visit Forest Knolls, the tiny little Hobbiton-type village nestled in San Geronimo Valley where I was born. Technically, Forest Knolls and its three neighboring hamlets are a part of Marin County, but because it is so remote, they are very often overlooked. The residents of this hanging valley prefer it that way.

The husband, who had to go to work, wished me goodspeed, and I set off with a high school friend to visit the house I grew up in. We traveled westward along Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, and each town we passed got smaller and more quaint, until we went through Fairfax, the last bastion of civilization before San Geronimo Valley. Once you get up the windy pass and over the hill, you’re in the sticks, for sure.

I regaled my friend with stories of my childhood, recalling with fondness the Friday nights when my mom and I would stop at the one video store in town, which was also a take-and-bake pizza shop, for a night of movies and pizza. To my surprise, the store still exists and is still open!

When I was a kid, the center of town consisted of the post office, a tiny restaurant called the Two Bird Cafe, a pub, and a corner/general store called The Little Store. I expected, over the course of 25 years, that Forest Knolls would not be immune to the much-bemoaned Bay Area sprawl. I thought for sure there would be at least a traffic light. Instead, only the post office and the bar remain. The Little Store was still standing, but had clearly experienced some terrible flooding damage and was closed permanently.

On our way back to civilization, we passed a sign that said “Two Bird Cafe,” and immediately pulled over to investigate. The restaurant I remember from my youth had relocated one town over, to San Geronimo, but it was definitely the same place! Same furniture, same china, and the same delicious food. I was so happy to know that it had survived.

Our waitress was very kind and answered all my questions about the area. She talked to me about the video/pizza store, and informed me that they were looking to sell, if I wanted to get into the video/pizza business.

Apparently they are looking for a buyer. Hmm.

So that was my trip down memory lane. The rest of my vacation is reserved for making new memories, which is just as it should be.

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Ohana (Family)

Me, age 7-8 (?) in the yard of the Honolulu house

For as long as I can remember, I have looked forward to visits to Hawaii.

When I was little, my mother and I would get on a plane to Honolulu almost every summer for family reunions. She and her four sisters grew up in Hawaii, and my grandfather still lived there, so we always had a place to stay. Sometimes all my aunts and cousins would show up at once, but most of the time, each family unit would have overlapping vacations so that there wasn’t too much chaos at my grandfather’s house.

Even then, I remember the sleeping arrangements becoming more and more creative, what with three generations sleeping under one roof: there were two guest bedrooms, a basement apartment (which always smelled like mildew), the living room, a two guest rooms down the road at the Friends Meeting House (available at reasonable rates for our family, as we were Friends), and a tent in the backyard. I remember my cousins (all boys) vying for tent privileges; sleeping outdoors in the middle of Hawaii is not a bad way to spend your vacation, let me tell you!

My grandfather (we all called him “Gung-Gung”) had an amazing garden, resplendent with as many fruit trees as he could get away with on the property. A plentiful harvest of bananas, starfruit, guavas, mangos, and even breadfruit graced the table every morning. He also had macadamia trees, the nuts of which he would harvest, peel, and roast all year long. Our Christmas packages always included a jar of his very own macadamia nuts.

The best part about vacationing in Hawaii with our family is that we knew all the local hangouts. We would forgo the tourist-laden beaches of Waikiki and instead hop in the truck to Ala Moana. If we wanted to snorkel, we’d go to Hanauma Bay (this was before it was well-known; I thought it was our own little secret).

Invariably, we would all take a day trip to go to the North Shore. We would always stop at Matsumoto’s for a shave ice on our way to the Haleiwa house. Gung-Gung had built this one-bedroom house all by himself, and from time to time he rented it out. At the time that he had purchased the land, everything around it had been owned by C&H, and I remember driving through a forest of sugarcane to get to a house on stilts proudly standing in the middle of a rectangular area of cleared land.

Sam (but I knew him as "Gung-Gung")

Gung-Gung was fearless. I remember one time we were driving down the highway, and he spotted some ripe coconuts on a palm tree near the road. He directed my uncle to pull over, and my cousins and I watched in disbelief as he shimmied up the tree to retrieve the coconuts. His legs were cut from the rough bark, but he had the biggest smile on his face as he held up his trophies.

Now Gung-Gung is gone; he passed away in 2003 from Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother had moved to Honolulu a few years earlier to help take care of him, and now she is the new resident local family member. She lives in the Haleiwa house that Gung-Gung built, and she always encourages us to come visit as much as possible!

My cousin Sam, in the same yard that I posed in almost 30 years prior.

When I got married in Hawaii, the trip ended up being a three-generation affair once more. My cousin’s daughter (named Sam after Gung-Gung) was one of my flower girls, and her grandmother (my aunt, who she calls “Po-Po”) was also there. Everybody stayed in neighboring bungalows on the beach, and that large extended-family comfortableness that I recalled from my childhood was back, just as I wanted.

I think there is something very magical about Hawaii, especially where my family is concerned. I know my husband loves Hawaii (“Everything moves at my pace,” he says), so the only discussion we have about vacation spots is where in Hawaii we want to visit next. If/when we ever have any children, there is no question we will be making family trips out there regularly so my kids can be infused with that same magic.

This week’s Indie Ink Writing Challenge came from Tara, who gave me this prompt:

A three-generation family vacation.

I challenged xtinabosco, who will answer her prompt by the end of the week here.