When I was in fourth grade, each student was assigned one of the 50 states. During the year we were to gather materials and then just before summer recess, we would turn in elaborate reports on our state.
My state was Hawaii and I couldn’t have been happier. It seemed like such an exotic far-off place. I had never been, so I had my research cut out for me. Fortunately a neighbor family had taken a vacation there and brought back black sand and coral that I could put in my report.
Today’s images are all about traveling to Hawaii. Click on any image for a larger version.
Of course we had no Internet then, so research was done at the library or via the United States Postal Service. My first research task was to write to a Hawaii tourism board and ask for information. Eventually I received a nice packet of information and that, combined with my reading of the Hawaii entry in our home World Book Encyclopedia set, gave me enough to get started.
Hawaii, it turns out, has a rich and unique history as far as American states go, and I did touch a bit on that history. And of course from an American perspective, the big news from Hawaii centered around Pearl Harbor. I got a brochure on the USS Arizona memorial and I even wrote a really bad poem about Pearl Harbor for my report. I think I did a drawing of the Japanese raid.
But being a young American I focused primarily on what happened after Hawaii became a state in 1959. It amazed me that I was older than one of our states.
For quite some time, the big industry of Hawaii has been tourism. American cruise ships began regular trips from the West Coast in the 1930s, and adventure-loving people found Hawaii to be the perfect mix of tropical paradise and relatively safe transit. For many decades the Matson Line SS Lurline (which was actually several different ships over time) was the dominant cruise vessel to and from the mainland.
I remember seeing off a school friend’s parents at the dock in San Pedro, California, as they boarded the mighty cruise ship bound for the Islands. While jet travel had mostly taken over the route by then, those with the time could still travel in luxury by ship.
I believe there are once again cruises to Hawaii, but for quite a few decades after the Lurline stopped in the late 1960s, there was no regular ship service to the Islands. People are in too big of a hurry these days, and it is quite a long journey by ship.
My first trip to Hawaii was in 1974, when a high school buddy and I embarked on a scuba diving adventure. It was only my second airplane trip and quite exciting to go somewhere so far away. I had saved my money for two years working part-time after school delivering drugs for a small pharmacy.
We went to Oahu and the big island of Hawaii. Armed with my fourth-grade report knowledge, I brought my friend up to speed on the volcanic formations and island history. We visited the same black-sand beach my neighbor had seen so many years before, and we went to Pearl Harbor. It didn’t seem like the Islands had changed much since my report.
I’ve since been to Hawaii many times. When you live on the West Coast, relatively cheap airfares and bargain hotel rates make trips there pretty affordable.
I never could get behind the touristy stuff, though, like luaus and hulas staged for visitors. I guess, thanks to my early school reporting, I felt more like an insider — not quite a native, of course, but someone “in the know” about Hawaiian culture.
As you can see from all these images, selling Hawaii isn’t all that hard — you simply have to show the beauty of the place and the people. Now we have lots of exotic destinations to choose from. But for a while there Hawaii was as far away as many people ever got from their homes back on the mainland.
By the way, I got an A- on my report. I guess the poetry left just enough to be desired, or my drawing skills weren’t up to straight-A standards.
This article was last modified on May 17, 2023
This article was first published on February 19, 2010
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