Post #282955 by khan_tiki_mon on Sat, Feb 3, 2007 9:20 PM

Wow! What a great thread. Maybe not. It's almost midnight on a Saturday night and I'm plowed. Too many cocktails. It's cold and snowy outside and I'm warm and toasted inside. The pursuit of Tiki is a quest for me but I don't know what I'm looking for. Escape maybe. In a post elsewhere on Tiki Central today Chongolio quoted James Michener "-- In an age of anxiety men seek a refuge. Because of some deep urge, constant throughout history, troubled men traditionally dream of islands, possibly because the smallness of an island invites the illusion that here the complexities of continental societies can be avoided, or at least controlled. This is a permanent, world-wide dream." As I close in on a half century here I find that things aren't as clear as I might have thought they would be. What got me started collecting Tiki? As a young boy I read a lot. In the late 60s and early 70s I was reading anything with travel and adventure in it. I read Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl and I was totally captivated. I was too young for the Tiki lounge scene of the 1950s. I am nostalgic for something I never experienced. I am nostalgic for something that maybe never even existed but is only an ideal that can be seen in retrospect. And maybe I'm just plowed. Part of me is saying don't hit submit because no matter how smart you think you are after you've had too many cocktails, no matter how deep you think your insights are, come the cold harsh light of morning, you're going to say, "I had too much to drink last night." Ahh.. but the drunkard drones on... I think Michener hit it right on the head. I'm building my own little island. My little Tiki lounge is a place where I can retreat when all the crap weighs on me so much that I don't think I can even breathe another minute. My Tiki lounge, my island, is a place in my soul, and my collecting Tiki is an attempt at the creation of a physical manifestation of that island; or safe haven. It is an attempt to bring that piece of my soul to life in the light of day. Man, am I plowed or what? I must be almost drooling. I think I will wrap up this post, make myself one more cocktail, and slip into oblivion in front of the fireplace as the snow swirls outside...