Chapter 8 Looking Forward to Hawaii

Chapter 8

Looking Forward to Hawaii

On my return to Melbourne from Leeton I knew I had only touched the surface of my roots, and none of it inspired me to press for more secrets to be brought to the surface. I had had enough!

I changed the flight departure time so I could stopover in Hawaii for eight days, and asked at the Tourist Bureau (the only tourist booking agent in Australia I was told) for a booking at an inexpensive hotel, boarding house or shanty. The Reef hotel, right on the beach, was the only hotel they had available, and that would take all my money. I couldn’t afford the selfish eight days I had planned for myself.

The wheels going around in my head suggested I become a beachcomber. A place to sleep was the last thing I wanted to spend money on. I certainly didn’t need the luxury of the Reef Hotel to enjoy my stay in Hawaii. If I was very conservative, I could pay my hotel bill but may be left destitute if an emergency arose. Why not take a chance! Be adventurous! It’s now or never!

When had I ever envisaged an emergency that I couldn’t handle?

Eight days of course, was out of the question - I opted for three days!

On leaving Australia, as before, I was still going to miss my brother Peter the most - nothing really had changed.

In Fiji there was an unexpected delay with our Qantas plane - the airline had over-booked. Waiting in the Nandi passenger lounge while the plane was refuelling, I joined a small group of women ordering drinks at the bar. There I met a black American woman who was a singer from the States, Della Reese. She had just finished a six weeks’ singing contract with a nightclub in Sydney. She had been offered a new contract for another six weeks, but because her visa and work permit allowed only the original period of time, she had to go back to the States for one week and re-apply for re-entry to Australia with a new visa.

Della said that this had happened to her before, although she had two friends in show business with similar nightclub contracts in Australia who were able to get visa extensions without any trouble. I asked her if they had given any explanation for rejecting her application.

“Honey, you just don’t understand. Ma’ two friends are white!” I hadn’t realized the White Australia Policy still existed in the 60’s.

Jean, the young girl sitting on my right, was going to Washington DC, where she worked at the Australian Embassy. She had been on annual leave visiting her family in Sydney.

An airline representative approached our table and said that there was a businessman who needed to get to Los Angeles for a very important meeting, but the plane was full. “Would any of you be willing to give up your seat for the gentleman?” Jean, from the Embassy jumped up and offered her seat right away. She went off with the airline’s representative and later returned to tell us of the wonderful deal the airline offered her:

They would accommodate her in the best hotel for two days in Fiji, and would purchase the two pair of shoes she had planned to buy on a two-day stopover in LA. As the airline couldn’t retrieve her luggage from the plane, they were prepared to foot the bill for anything she would need for four days. It was as good as an open cheque!

When I told Jean that she had beaten me by a second to my making the offer, she laughed. “You didn’t stand a chance! This has happened to me twice before, and I know how well the airline treats you when you give up your seat, particularly for a businessman. I now plan my flight back to Washington at least four days ahead of schedule, anticipating such an offer.” As hard as I tried I couldn’t win that one! She was a girl after my own heart but quicker on the draw.

As we approached the islands of Hawaii, I remembered the previous trip from Australia to the States - in 1946, when the war brides were looking forward to a day in Honolulu. I was on board the SS David C Shanks, the US army transport taking the war brides and children to San Francisco. How excited we all were about having a day off the ship on dry land in Honolulu. We had talked about it for days.

The night before we were scheduled to dock in Honolulu, an announcement over the public address system informed us that we would not be docking at all, but dropping anchor off Honolulu while we took three United States customs officers on board. When we dropped anchor, we were so far from shore that we couldn’t even see the coastline of any of the islands. There wasn’t a whisper of air that day. It was hot and humid, too hot to stay on deck and not much better below deck, until the tropical trade winds refreshed us by late afternoon.

There was only one rewarding feature of that episode: we did get a supply of fresh tropical fruit and fish, and by the time we docked in San Francisco we were thankful that all the customs business was taken care of and there were no delays. We declared we would make it to Hawaii some day.