The McElfresh Magazine

My Bathroom Frog Friend

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:00:12 -1000

We had a garage sale in Wichita, KS many years ago. Garage sales are better when there’s more merchandise to sell, so family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers often are invited to bring their goods.

Sharon Durmaskin brought a ceramic frog, obviously female (though I don’t know how I could tell if it were a real frog), obviously low priced at 25-cents. She sold it to me for 15-cents.

That may be the most pleasure anyone can get out of 15-cents, except for an evening with Jessica Alba for a dime.

The frog is wearing an orange and white smock, and sitting upright on a ceramic toilet (when I bought the frog, the toilet and frog were one piece-- now there are two pieces, but don’t ask why).

Her frog hands are folded over her knees, and her frog legs are crossed. The look on the frog face is one of contentment, so I assume that whatever frogs can do while sitting on ceramic toilet has already been done.

Why is this remarkable? The frog looks exactly like my wife in a similar position.

Living High

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:00:45 -1000

We lived on the 19th floor of a high rise condominium for a few years. The view was breathtaking.

Well, it was breathtaking if you didn’t look at all the parts of the view, especially those not so breathtaking.

So it is with views from tall buildings. What you see is sky, landscape, and other buildings. In the case of our 19th floor view, we could see most of the hotels and other concrete buildings heading into Waikiki. We also had an excellent view of Ala Moana Beach Park, the Pacific Ocean, and the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor (the boats).

While that may sound enticing, roughly half the view was of the concrete parking lot, or the tops of the buildings at the sprawling Ala Moana Shopping Center.

Imagine what it must be like for tourists in Waikiki. Tourists with hotels that have an ocean front view get to see the Pacific Ocean and beaches. Everyone else has a great view of everyone else having a view of concrete and steel hotels. That’s not so enticing.

A point of diminishing return is reached rather quickly as the view goes higher and higher. More sky, more landscape and horizon, more concrete and steel. And, at least in Hawaii, more ocean.

Cowboy Buddies Forever

Tue, 9 Oct 2007 06:00:32 -1000

There was a time when Vernelle and I traveled to various trade shows, including the infamous Comdex in Las Vegas, and the NAB convention (in Dallas, TX).

I was there to learn, and Vernelle was there to take home stuff. The two cowboy hats above came courtesy of an NAB convention in Dallas back in the early 1980s. We still have the hats on our bookshelves at home.

Needless to say, the kids underneath the hats are true cowboy size over 20 years later. Except they’re not cowboys. They’re surfers. And they’re still best buddies.

What is interesting is the difference in their smiles from age four (above) to today. As young men, they don’t smile as readily as they did as children. I think that’s true of most of us, except Vernelle.

She didn’t learn to smile until she met me.

Baby Pictures

Mon, 8 Oct 2007 06:00:21 -1000

This is the week for baby pictures. Jonathan and fiance Jennifer are getting married Saturday morning.

I’m in charge of the slide show and that means scanning a few hundred photos of Jon and Jenn and putting them together in some semblance of chronological order.

That also means lots of baby pictures. Lots. Hundreds.

So far, we’ve narrowed the stack down to about 150 pictures. Do the math. Assume that each picture stays on the screen for five seconds, and allowing one second for a dissolve between each picture, that’s a total of six seconds times 150. That’s 900 seconds total, or 15 minutes.

Is that too long, just right, or not long enough?

I’m going with the former and plan to trim the whole mess down to about 120 pictures. If five seconds isn’t enough to view the pictures, then I’ll charge a mere $5.00 for a CD with all the pictures.

That won’t cover the cost of raising a child for 25 years, but it’s a start.

Grandma's Coming To Town

Sun, 7 Oct 2007 06:00:29 -1000

The last of our children is getting married soon and Grandma is coming to Hawaii for the wedding.

Grandma will be 99 years old next month, though we may age a few years during her visit. 99 years ago it was October in 1908. The US had few paved roads, few automobiles, fewer airplanes, and travel to Hawaii was by ship or swim.

Today, Grandma can leave the Midwest late in the morning and arrive in Hawaii late in the afternoon on the same day. Wherever she goes these days there is always someone to watch over her, make sure she has plenty to eat, and time to rest.

She first came to Hawaii in late winter 1994, then again for another wedding in the fall of 2002. This may be her final trip to Hawaii, but it won’t be forgotten.

Eat Where Truckers Eat

Sat, 6 Oct 2007 06:00:05 -1000

The photo above was taken from the tower in The Aloha Tower Market Place, across from downtown Honolulu.

ATM is an attractive, modern, thoroughly pleasant, Hawaii-like shopping center with stores and restaurants and a pier. Actually, piers. To the left, facing the ocean, are piers for dinner cruise ships. To the right is a larger pier for ocean cruise ships. Farther to the right is Honolulu Harbor.

The Market Place has a number of popular restaurants for both daytime and evening dining. One of them is the Aloha Tower Grill which overlooks the harbor.

The old adage “eat where truckers eat” is worthy assuming you want plenty of food, modest prices, quick service. That’s exactly what we found at Aloha Tower Grill. Minus the truckers.

Minus customers, too. And that’s the problem at Aloha Tower Grill.

The view is good, the service quick and friendly, and every meal we’ve had, half a dozen in the past year, has been very good. Portions are large, and prices modest.

So, where are all the customers? Friday night looks like Sunday morning at Miss Kitty’s Saloon in Gunsmoke.

Maybe the truckers haven’t found it or there’s nowhere to park. Whatever it is, Aloha Tower Grill isn’t getting the word-of-mouth advertising it needs to prosper.

It’s not the food, prices, location, or service. All are very good. It must be the absence of truckers.

Visit The Volcano

Fri, 5 Oct 2007 06:00:08 -1000

One of my all time favorite drives is the winding road to the top of Mt. Haleakala, Maui.

Through a few dozen miles of changing terrain, drivers have the pleasure of a twisting, turning, two-lane highway with breathtaking views-- the kind that can easily distract a driver.

Somewhere around 6,000 feet above sea level is the tree line. That means trees no longer grow, and vegetation is sparse.

At around 8,000 feet above sea level drivers will pass through the cloud layer on a typical day. Clouds, while you’re driving through one, feel just like a thick and quickly moving fog.

The summit of Mt. Haleakala is cold and windy, but not freezing. The volcano crater often is covered with a thick blanket of clouds which rise and fall throughout the day, clearing a visual path to the crater floor, settling back to cover the moon-like landscape with clouds.

The drive to the summit is about an hour from nearby Kahului Airport. The drive back is about an hour. The view from the summit is worth 30-minutes, longer if you can handle the cold.

Yes, it’s cold. Cold is relative, of course. If you’re used to Hawaii weather which is always in the 70s or 80s, anything with a 30 mile an hour wind and temperatures less than 50-degrees is cold.

A River Runs Near It

Thu, 4 Oct 2007 06:00:12 -1000

I grew up in a small town along the Mississippi River. The river was the dividing line between Missouri and Illinois, between hills and bluffs and valleys on the Missouri side, and low-lying flat lands which flooded every spring on the Illinois side.

Geography binds people together, and separates us. The nearby Illinois folks were sometimes disparagingly referred to as “Swampies.” Those unfortunate enough to live along the river banks were considered “River rats.”

I didn’t learn to swim in the Mississippi. That right of passage was reserved for Buffalo Creek, a few miles from the river. Still, our family would have some outings here and there on the river, so I can say I swam in the Muddy Mississippi.

Yes, it was and is, muddy. The current is strong and moves swiftly south. Each year, one or two people who live within news-traveling distance will drown in the Mississippi. Huge barges loaded with grain or minerals ply the waters north and south. Trains run the rails north and south along the river bank.

A fortunate few small towns have their own bridge spanning the Mississippi into Illinois, my home town being one. A bridge means highways and highways mean commerce and customers.

Summer means boating along the river, including water skiing, another right of passage for youngsters from Louisiana, MO. The city has a municipal swimming pool, so it is likely that fewer kids learn to swim in the Mississippi River.

Regardless, growing up in a small town along the Mississippi River is special.

The Beach At Kahala

Wed, 3 Oct 2007 06:00:20 -1000

Contrary to popular belief, the beaches in Hawaii are not perfect.

Sure, the beaches here are better than beaches in New Jersey or Michigan or Texas and most of the US West Coast. The water is great, the weather is wonderful, but the sand on most Hawaii beaches is mediocre at best.

Oahu’s most popular beach is Waikiki. The sand on Waikiki beach is either trucked in or sucked in from offshore sand sucking efforts to replenish a beach front that is slowly eroding to wherever beaches go when they die.

Maui has a few beaches which have been voted best in the world. That doesn’t say much for the rest of the best in the world.

Sand is made of rock. Some beaches have coarse, rough sand, such as the black sand beach a Kalapani on the Big Island. Beaches in Florida have a fine grained, almost sugar-like consistency. Too bad there’s so much trash on the beaches in Florida.

The Kahala Hotel and Resort in east Honolulu has a wonderfully attractive web site which beckons travelers to an 800 foot secluded beach. 800 feet sounds like a lot but take a short stroll and you’ll be viewing the ocean on one side and people eating dinner in their homes on the other side.

Almost none of the colorful photographs of the Kahala and the beach look anything like that in real life.

The beach at Kahala has a rough, gravelly consistency, like Lauren Bacall’s voice after smoking for 50 years. Though the sand is worse, the Kahala beach has one advantage over the beach at Waikiki. Nobody’s there. It’s nearly empty. Waikiki’s beach is never empty.

Uncle Ron's Cheeseburger Party

Tue, 2 Oct 2007 06:00:20 -1000

When our young friend Kana was hospitalized, I promised her a cheeseburger party when her health improved.

Thanks to our somewhat more mature kids, Kimi and Shelley, and a dozen kids, we had a successful party. Inside we had food, snacks, drinks, and adults.

Outside we had games, kids, prizes, and sweat. The kids ranged in age from four to 11, except for Kimi and Shelley, and the adults (subtle, huh?).

Any gathering of children in elementary or middle school is bound to include a few bumps and bruises. Me. The most enjoyable game was also the most simple. Kimi tied a powdered donut to a string, and tied the other end of the string to a clothes line outside in the yard.

Each kid stood in front of the donut, hands behind the back. The winner was the one who finished eating the donut first, without using hands, and without the donut falling to the ground. It’s more difficult that it sounds.

Everyone got a prize. A donut. The winner got a paper star with the donut. Who says childhood doesn’t come with rewarding experiences?