Two to Travel's Blasts from the Past: 1984

Christmas Season: Parties & Gifts

December 1984

The ‘84 Christmas season was a busy one …

On December 9, we went to Green Street, a private club in Salt Lake City, for a fundraiser called “Glass Slipper” …

This was our Christmas Tree …

… And this was the tree our landlord put up.

On December 13, we attended a Christmas party at the Maxfield residence …

With Robyn and her son, Taylor.

As was our tradition, we opened gifts on Christmas Eve, December 24 …

Electric footbath/massager from Mui.

This glue gun has served Mui for 27 years.

An appointment book from Mui (L); and an apron from Aunt Lorraine (R).

One of my gifts to Mui was a sweater to keep him warm.

A Christmas Eve photo from Turkey. My paternal aunt and her family always visited on December 24 to help my mother and sister celebrate their Christmas Eve birthdays …

On Christmas Night, we were invited to the home of Connie and Rudy (Robyn’s parents) …

Here I am with Mr Christiansen … or as he was fondly known, Mr C.

A Day in Hawaii: USS Bowfin

10 November 2984

Following our visit to the USS Arizona Memorial (click here to read the post), the shuttle boat returned us to the Visitor Center.

If you squint and look in the distance, you can see the USS Arizona Memorial.

With time on our hands before our sunset cruise, we decided to tour the USS Bowfin, a WWII-era submarine, that was nicknamed the “Pearl Harbor Avenger.” Located next door to the USS Arizona Visitor Center, it was easy walking-distance. While we waited for a group to finish touring the submarine, we played around with the big guns on the museum grounds.

Though an excellent anti-aircraft weapon, the 3"/50 proved to be too light to be effective.

the 40mm Quad Gun was designed primarily for anti-aircraft fire.
Each gun had a firing rate of 120 rounds per minute and fired a 2-lb. projectile.

The USS Bowfin, a Balao-class fleet attack submarine, was launched in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on December 7, 1942. From the time she was commissioned on May 1, 1943 to when the war in the Pacific ended in August 1945, she conducted nine war patrols and sank 44 enemy vessels.

An audio-tour wand makes an excellent guide.

USS Bowfin was decommissioned in July 1946. It remained in the reserve fleet until July 1951 when it was recommissioned for use during the Korean War. She didn’t see any action during that conflict, however.

Welcome Aboard!

From 1960 to 1971, USS Bowfin served as a Reserve Training Submarine in Seattle, Washington. In December 1971, she was stricken from the Navy rolls, an action that means a ship is too old for any useful purpose. She was saved from being sold for scrap when she was ordered to Pearl Harbor for retirement. As the brochure we picked up stated: “Almost immediately, a small group in Hawaii banded together to foster and implement a common idea: a fitting tribute to the men of the Silent Service who played such an important role in the United States’ victory in the Pacific during World War II.”

The forward torpedo tubes.

Below are scans of the brochure we picked up at the USS Bowfin Museum and Park; click for a larger, legible version.

A Day in Hawaii: USS Arizona Memorial

10 November 1984

“A date which will live in infamy …”

I don’t think there’s an English-speaking person anywhere in the world that does not know these first few words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential address, delivered on 8 December 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A chill runs down my spine every time I hear the words.

[scanned from the US National Park Service (USNPS) brochure]

When the opportunity to visit Honolulu presented itself (click here for the story of the trip), there was no doubt in our minds where we would spend at least a part of our limited time on the island — the USS Arizona Memorial.

The sheen of oil on the water is from the sunken USS Arizona, clearly visible below the surface.
The oil that seeps out of the ship is known as the “tears of the Arizona.”
[scanned from postcard]

A mere minute after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor commenced, the USS Arizona was shattered by torpedo and bomb explosions. One armor-piercing bomb penetrated Arizona’s forward powder magazine. The resulting explosion wrecked half the battleship and killed her commanding officer and a rear admiral, both on the bridge at the time. This tremendous blast caused Arizona to sink in nine minutes, so fast that hundreds of men were trapped below. Of the 1177 officers and enlisted men killed, 75 bodies were recovered and the remaining 1102 are still entombed in the sunken battleship.

This painting is inside the memorial bridge that spans the sunken USS Arizona.

I’m not going to turn this post into a thesis, but a few words about the Memorial are in order (from the USNPS brochure):

The Arizona Memorial is the final resting place for about 1000 Navy men and Marines who lost their lives defending the USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. The Memorial spans the sunken battleship Arizona and consists of a gleaming white, 184-foot (56 m) long concrete structure with several main areas: a large entryway; an expansive, airy, light-filled, semi-open central assembly space for ceremonies and general observation; and a shrine chamber where the names of 1177 sailors and marines killed aboard the battleship on December 7, 1941 are engraved into a white marble wall.

The USS Arizona anchor; raised from the sunken battleship.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the construction of the Memorial during his second term as president in 1958. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed the bill appropriating $150,000 for the construction. The Pacific War Memorial Commission spearheaded a fundraising drive for the completion of the Memorial, and in 1962 the Memorial was dedicated.

Contrary to popular belief, the USS Arizona is no longer in commission. The Navy Department, as a special tribute to the ship and her lost crew, permits the United States flag to fly daily from the flagpost which is attached to the severed mainmast of the sunken battleship.

Behind Mui are the moorings to which the USS Arizona and some of the other
battleships were tied up on that fateful day.

The barbette to gun turret number three.
(Barbette = protective circular armor around a cannon or heavy artillery gun.)

The flagpost (R) is attached to the mainmast of the sunken battleship.

Here are some additional scans from the USNPS brochure … click for larger, legible versions:

Our visit to the USS Arizona was a moving experience that has stayed with us to this day. We hope to repeat this visit someday in the future.

A Day in Hawaii: The Story

9-11 November 1984

No one in their right mind goes to Hawaii for just one day. Right? Wrong! We did!!! OK, so with travel time it was more like a weekend trip, but we had just one day for sightseeing on Oahu, the third largest island of the 50th State of the US. The total cost for the two of us was $20 for airfare (and that was actually for the boxed lunch we were served on the return trip to Utah), and two nights at a reasonably-priced, off-Waikiki hotel — one of the Outrigger properties, I think.

Google Maps image showing the places we visited on Oahu.
[click the map for a larger version]

So, how did this trip happen? We heard that the Utah Air National Guard was running fairly regular training missions to Hawaii. As long as there was space available (Space A), members of the military and their dependents could go along. Why not, we said to ourselves, and signed up.

We flew a KC-135 air refueling tanker — most definitely not a passenger plane, that’s for sure. Bring to mind those war movies where paratroopers are sitting in webbed-seats along the fuselage and you’ll get a picture of how we flew to Hawaii. Yup. There we were, in our not-so-comfortable web seats for a rather lengthy trans-Pacific flight, crates of cargo in the middle of the aircraft, no portholes that I can recall, and freezing cold to boot. Did we care? No; we were on our way to a warm, tropical island.

We took off from Salt Lake City around 4-5p on a Friday, made a stop in Arizona to drop off some golfers (I’m sure there was an otherwise legit reason for the stop), and landed in Honolulu shortly before 11:00p. (Bear in mind that there’s a 3-hour time difference between Utah and Hawaii.) The hot, humid night air was a welcome relief after the cold temps we’d endured during the flight. Inside the terminal, we were greeted with leis — welcome to paradise. Picking up our rental car, we drove straight to our hotel. Rather exhausted, we fell into bed for a restful night’s sleep.

The next day, we found a place to have breakfast, drove over to Diamond Head to check out the views, then went to Pearl Harbor to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. We capped off the day with a sunset dinner cruise. The following morning, we walked around downtown Honolulu for a bit before going to the airport for our return flight to Utah. Same aircraft; same conditions. But hey, who cares. Our little adventure left us with memories that have lasted a lifetime.

Here are a few photos from our drive up to the Diamond Head Lighthouse.

And here's a photograph from the sunset dinner cruise; the colors were so badly deteriorated that I kept just the one that shows Diamond Head in the distance and converted it to B&W. The streak in the photo … well that was the beautiful rainbow that graced our cruise.

Thank You

22 October 1984

It’s always nice to be appreciated for the work one does … here’s a note from one of the clients of the company I worked for. (Petrolex represented individuals who owned oil and gas leases, and helped them sell the drilling rights to such parcels to interested companies.)

Something I’ll always remember about Dwight … he was on the 14th Street Bridge when Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River in January 1982. I didn’t know this until much later when he and his partner took us out to dinner during our 1985 trip to Washington, DC. As we listened to him relate the experience at a restaurant overlooking the Potomac, chills ran up my spine.

By the way, the gift mentioned in the card was a burnt-cherry leather briefcase … I used it for many, many years.

Arches National Park

5-6 October 1984

Our short visit to Arches National Park introduced to us to one of our favorite places in the park service system. We hiked to several of the feature arches, including Delicate Arch, one of the most recognized landmarks of not just this national park, but of Utah as well.

263 miles (420 km) each way — not bad for a weekend getaway.
[click map for a larger version]

Here’s some information I had posted in my album (source unidentified):

Most of the changes in our world are very tiny and so escape our notice. They are real, however, and over an immense span of time their combined effect brings about great change.

Erosion has carved the landscape that is seen at Arches today, but there must also be something else at work since elsewhere we do not see the arches, towers, and other features one finds here. This “very important” factor is a rock, not seen because it lies far beneath the crust of earth we stand upon, and yet, it is familiar to us: SALT.

Long before any of what is seen today came into existence, the region was a huge depression flooded by an inland sea. Streams flowing into this basin carried salt, which, when the sea evaporated, was left behind. In time, the sea withdrew, and other sediments were deposited. These sediments eventually were consolidated into rock.

Mui and his three penguin buddies.

When subjected to great pressure, salt will flow. If the weight pressing down on the salt layer is not evenly distributed, the salt may bulge upward where the weight is lighter. This, in turn, causes the overlying layers of rock to bend and fracture, forming almost parallel joints. The jointed rocks are more vulnerable to the forces of erosion, and in time, become a series of tall, thin slabs called “fins.” As erosion continues, it works faster on the softer portion of the fins, creating holes in them. Eventually, as more and more of the rock is worn away, the span becomes so thin that it cannot support its own weight and collapses.