011 The Battleship Iowa at the Los Angeles World Cruise Center.
121 Me with my brand new soprano ukulele and one of the Polynesian group’s dancers. I always get the tough assignments.
27th: Our last day at sea before Hilo. Pretty much a normal day but I did attend the ukulele class taught by the Polynesian dance group aboard. I had so much fun there that I bought a ukulele from them. It’s a soprano type so it’s small and easy to take home. Even if I never play it, Diana collects indigenous musical instruments and we have them from all over.
The Hawaiians owe their ukulele to the Portuguese cowboys that came to get control of the cattle that were roaming anywhere they wanted, destroying crops and disturbing the locals. (Apparently in the beginning when Captain Vancouver brought cattle to the islands he gave them to the king whereupon the king retained ownership and declared them sacred. (Who knew that the Hawaiian kings were Hindus J?) That was ok in the beginning but the cattle population grew to huge proportions because they could not be killed or molested in any way. With the end of the Kingdom of Hawaii the cattle lost their protected status and cowboys from Portugal were brought in to get them under control.) All that to say that these cowboys brought their tradition of guitarras with them and thus the Hawaiian ukulele was born. H. Nunes invented it in 1879 while living in Hawaii. So while it is an indigenous instrument it is not exactly ancient. Apparently ukulele is the Hawaiian word for ‘small person’. The group’s uke player helped me pick out one with a good tone and easy action. One of the dancers posed with me for a picture.
So far the rest of the day has been unremarkable, that is I’ve pretty much stuck to my normal schedule. The captain is currently making his 1PM navigational announcement. It’s been a very smooth crossing. I’m glad that we are not on the usual route for this fall cruise. We’d be in the Northern Pacific and Bering Sea and there have been several strong storms up there. We’d have been locked indoors and quite a few people would not have been making it to meals.
I attended the second half of the Hawaiian culture and traditions show. It started with the uniting of the islands by King Kamehameha I and the founding of the Hawaiian monarchy, went through the contact with Europeans, the arrival of missionaries, the dividing of the land, the founding of the cane, coffee and pineapple plantations, the establishment of the Bayonet Constitution, the end of the monarchy, the annexation by the US and the final step, statehood. She spoke briefly about the arrival of mass tourism in the 1920-30s and the coming of Hollywood with Dorothy Lamoure, Bing Crosby et al and the last major invasion Elvis and the Beach Blanket Bingo crowd, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello (sp?). It was a fun presentation. Every now and then they two hula dancers would come out and show how the hula was evolving from the traditional style (Kahiko) of yesterday’s presentation to the glammed up glitter style of the 20-30s to the cool style of the 50-60s. Very entertaining.
Gene has instituted a new performance time for this cruise. He calls it the 7:30 Spotlight. Between 7:30 and 8PM he has asked some of the performers on the ship to do a short show prior to the 8:15PM regular show time. Tonight is was Tomono Kawamura the pianist from last night. A large contingent was in the Queen’s Lounge for her show tonight. Again, she was excellent.
The main show was the Unexpected Boys, a Four Seasons retro group. They started off with from Frankie Valle but soon branched out into some show tunes. Unfortunately their set included some Andrew Lloyd Webber. His stuff is so overdone I almost can’t stand to sit through anything from Phantom. One of the members performed a very nice tap dance routine. They ended the show with Four Seasons tunes, their true strength. Very enjoyable.
Tomorrow we finally get to hit dry land again, Hilo, Hawaii. We’re meeting an old friend and co-worker from California, Gary. He was born on Hawaii and moved back here when he retired. It will be good to see him. Those of you who followed our trip last fall might remember that I called him to see if he was available then only to have him call me back from Honolulu, where we had been the day before.
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