Post #443345 by bigbrotiki on Sun, Mar 29, 2009 8:04 AM

Very nice! It is amazing how the timeline of Fred Barton's inspiration and involvement mirrors the heyday of Tiki: 1960 - 1965, the period of intense Tiki fever all over the States. The naive joy about Hawaiian statehood at the beginning, and then America's fall from grace and growing self-consciousness beginning with the Kennedy assassination, and the Vietnam war at the end. And then in 1972, a disco called "Electric Crater"! Classic! How the Bartons must have felt about that. Fred Barton was sort of a local Don The Beachcomber, as his daughter said an idea man, a doer who grew tired of a thing once it was finished and needed new challenges, it seems. Also, he burned himself out, if he died in 1975 -or he was already an old timer by then. Probably a heavy drinker/smoker/eater and....

Good to get the confirmation when the place was changed into its gingerbread/alpine lodge style. Too bad the article did not delve into the original reason for the name of of the lake.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2009-03-29 10:18 ]