COOL SAILING in 1966

A commercial came on tv last night for some cruise line that has a HUGE ship that has a gaping hole in the fantail area with cabins facing across this expanse like some apartment complex. I looked at it and immediately thought that it looked like a Borg ship. Thousands upon thousands of people on board. The hive. Everyone being directed to activities. People surrounded by other people, but unaware of their existence. Blinded by vacation.

Then there's the old Matson Lines.


Click on image to see it larger. (SOURCE: Here's Hawaii, 1966)



To get a feeling of what it was like to travel on a Matson Liner there is a wonderful book called To Honolulu in Five Days. Full of images of ephemera, it tells the story of your trip to heaven and what it was like once you got there.

MATSON ad, October 1936

There's nothing particularly Polynesian about this ad, and yet that was what they were hoping to sell you. This ad could have just as easily been for Miami. So why weren't the people of Polynesia featured in ads? I don't think I need to delve into the answer for this. I think most people can figure it out. It's a shame, because I'm guessing that when a lot of passengers disembarked from their ship at the Aloha Tower their senses were soon overwhelmed by Hawaii that they dreaded ever returning to their world of browns and grays. Who would want to leave a place full of color and flowers that bloom all year long?


Click on image to see it larger. (SOURCE: The American Magazine, October, 1936)

You can actually buy a sign of this image, sans type, from a company that is licensed to reproduce vintage Matson Liner ephemera. They also have many of the beautiful illustrations Matson commissioned for murals and ephemera. I wish they offered posters instead of signs.


To get a feeling of what it was like to travel on a Matson Liner there is a wonderful book called To Honolulu in Five Days. Full of images of ephemera, it tells the story of your trip to heaven and what it was like once you got there.

MATSON ad, May 1937

For anyone who has followed this odd corner of the universe for any length of time you'll know my love for the Matson Lines and Hawaii back in the 1950s and '60s. If you aren't aware of this and want to bore yourself for a little while just click on some of the label links below.

This ad was the front inside cover of The American Magazine, May, 1937. Obviously there were still enough people who had spendable cash to take trips during the depression. You had to be very well off to go on one of these cruises, or at least been saving your pennies for a long time.


Click on image to see it larger.

I'm always searching for images from the Hawaii I remember. The Hawaii of today is a foreign land. The landmarks, even a couple of my homes, are long gone. But, I know there are others out there who remember these times; military kids who were uprooted from the Mainland and suddenly dropped into paradise. In my searches online I found the Flickr site of Kamaaina56. Hundreds of images of long ago vistas and buildings. I sat for hours looking at them, memories flooding back to a time that I still long for. I miss the magic of the place. It was indeed the most incredible place to be a child.

Stop on over to Tattered and Lost Photographs to see a mystery photo of a hotel in paradise. My problem is which paradise?

50 YEARS AGO today

It was 50 years ago today that my family boarded the SS Matsonia in San Francisco to sail to our new home in Hawaii. Hawaii was still a US territory, not a state. We sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge on a very cold January day, bundled in the warm clothes we'd brought from the East Coast. Within days we were in paradise covered in flower leis.

I'll never know who aboard that ship decided to seat two military families with two little girls at the same dining table, but I'm forever grateful. Those little girls became best friends for life, the sisters neither of us had. Today out of the 6 members of those two families only 3 survive.

I can't begin to describe what an adventure it was for two little girls on that ship. We still talk of the fun we had. We were instant friends.

We ate on the deck next to the pool, stole swizzle sticks out of people's drinks, sat beneath Tiki statues playing with our dolls, ran up and down from one end to another exploring the ship. The temperature changed from the wintery cold to tropical warmth and soon we were in shorts with our heavy coats packed away. We danced the Hukilau and were awarded with our own new Hawaiian names. It was magic. Though the ship is long gone, that beautiful ship, the friendship is still strong.

To learn more about what it was like to sail on a classic beautiful ocean liner before they became little more than giant garish shopping malls take a look at the book To Honolulu in Five Days: Cruising Aboard Matson's S.S. Lurline by Lynn Blocker Krantz, Nick Krantz, and Mary Thiele Fobian. I have placed a link to the book in the Amazon column on the left

Click on images to see them larger.