December 7, 1941..

How about a nice Hawaiian punchline?

I got nothing..I'm open to suggestions.  

I'm entitled to one stupid joke per blog, so there it is.

We just came back from a terrific excursion, and while Jim takes a catnap, I'll do a quickie update before we hit Waikiki Beach, the most popular beach in the world.

I was alarmed to return to the room to see we had a message, but it was just another one from the spa..Wow, they are aggressive!  I heard  a drunk at the bar refer to them as they "Massage Mafia" and I can see why..although wouldn't it be a kick in the shins if they could relieve the sciatic pain?

We were so tired last night--but not as crabby as those who just took 14 hour flights.  Again, we had a crappy meal(but a great one is on tap for tonight) which Jim ate anyway.  I'll never understand why he's the Laurel and I'm the Hardy--I guess it's because he actually moves???

We watched an episode of "Mom" before turning in, and I was excited to see that the red and black linoleum  that was the first thing we stepped on when entering the soundstage is the flooring used in the AA meetings scenes..something I never noticed before.  

This is the first sitcom I've seen since I learned of all the hours behind making a realistic work of fiction, so I found myself asking:  "Was that the first or the fifth rewritten joke?" 

 Allison Janney could sell me anything..she could convince me that Oxycodone was cotton candy with pure conviction, so it doesn't matter if she was delivering a rewrite or an original line.

But enough about sitcoms..let me describe my day so far. 

 I am still shocked that some people still want to read about it.

We met the 37 other folks who we will be touring with, and none of them got on my nerves yet. (Ugh..not up for making a joke about nerve pain now)

They're a motley crew  of old and older, fat and thin, anniversary acknowledgments and just some folks who don't want to make their own agendas.

We met our tour guide Cory, who I'll now refer to as Donny O since he looks like a young Donny Osmond. He shared my pain as he recently stepped on a sea urchin while night surfing.  I was embarrassed to tell this cool dude that my injury came from  something as mundane as shimmying across a booth in a diner.

We met our bus driver Kimo who was awesome too.  He drove us through many streets en route to Pearl Harbor, many streets with names that had one consonant and a thousand vowels, like my typical Scrabble rack.

He narrated what to expect on the excursion and he gave me goose bumps..and made me laugh.  When he was funny, he was Jimmy Kimmel.  When he was poignant, he was James Earl Jones.

He detailed exactly what it was like when natives woke up that fateful Sunday in December in 1941, and then he cleverly interspersed audio recordings from Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson as the events of 9/11 unfolded in front of all of our eyes.  The comparison was daunting and it made it so real. 

We toured a museum filled with artifacts that I'll always remember seeing..because this day in infamy is one we should never forget.  We saw FDR's original speech, encased in glass, filled with cross-outs and notations. It was awe-inspiring indeed.

After the museum, we were ushered into a pleasantly air-conditioned theater to see a short film.  What it lacked in length, it made up for in quality.  I've seen a lot of movie about bloody battles, but the film made the viewer feel like they were actually there that day.

After the film, we boarded a ferry that took us to the exact location of where the USS Arizona was bombed and where it sank.  The room was filled with reverence and respect..it was moving and humbling.  We were told of all the bodies beneath us, all the military heroes that lost their lives.  We saw a wall of names of all of those who died defending us,  One name eerily stood out:  "R. Coffin"

People say no trip to Hawaii would be complete with this excursion and people are right.

Kimo drove us to part two of our excursion--a drive around a cemetery built on a winding road.  The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is the permanent home of thousands of souls, including Challenger astronaut Ellison Onizuka,

Kimo's narration kept everything so real--the cemetery, the historic sites of Honolulu.

He then regaled us with a personal story that shook us to our very cores, the January 2018 news story that turned out to be a false alarm.

We all remember hearing those horrible words that day:  "This is not a drill..the island is under attack."

Kimo told us how he just picked up a group of tourists  just like us from this very hotel, how everyone got the alert on their phones.  How everyone used their phones to say goodbye to loved ones.  Kimo himself teared up as he described what it was like to say goodbye to his wife and his kids.

And..for necessary  comic relief, I'll end with this: 

 Once those hotel guests learned that this was a false alarm, I'm betting those bidets got a lot of good use.

OK..off to see some surfers and get my toes in the sand.