Share a childhood memory that reminds you of Tiki...

I just realised, as I was looking through old photos... the tiki spirit was with me as a child! My Nana, who is celebrating her 97th Birthday this month, was the one who transferred the Aloha spirit of Mana. With out knowing it.

You know it if you have it:

It's so much more than just the styles, genres, social historic eras, trends or art. It's an attitude.
Respect for your fellow cocktailer. A desire to make others feel at ease and enjoy themselves for a spell.
An interest in listening to other's thoughts, opinions and beliefs, because that's what makes them different from the other expressionless automatons you see every day at the offcie, grocery store, highway.
A desire to share the feeling you get when you hear ice clinking in a highball. When you catch the melodious lilt of an exotica rift floating on the air.
Catch a glimpse of that just so perfect angle of a vintage fedora on some chap's noggin.

When I have come to some TC events, I am transported back through the years. The most vivid memory I always have...

When I was really small, I lived with my Nana. She was quite the party girl and had people over every weekend. One night, I woke up and snuck into the kitchen and crawled under the bar stools to watch. Some kind of jazz was playing on the console, weaving a thick mat of indulgence through the air. Cigarette smoke hung heavy and low. Curls of the smoke were occasionally kicked up by the swirl of a taffeta skirt passing by. Exotic perfume came wafting in from the open windows. It was a mix of damp night air and Nan's gardenias that grew lush and thick below each window. Men were in sharp suits, complete with gleaming cap-toe oxfords. Others were more casual in their cardigans and wool slacks. The ladies were the best! Taffetas and silks in A Line styles, coiled updos, spiky heels, pointy toes. Of course, I really noticed the shoes, as I was on the floor! Everyone had a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. My Nana used a long filter/holder that had rhinestones, (I used to use it as my wand.) The bar had a big, glittery crystal ice bucket with gold tongs, lots of shimmering crystal bottles filled with amber liquids. Two chalk ware lamps of dancers with impossibly huge shades anchored each end of the bar, and a portrait of Nana, hanging above it all, holding sway to all things cool rounded out the vignette. Everyone was laughing and chatting. It was so nice. I wanted to be a grown up and be those people so bad! They were beautiful, confident, smooth, swanky, with out a care in the world. The person they were talking with was the most important person for that moment.

Ahhhh. The innocence of long ago memories.

Anyways, I have felt this ghost of a memory caressing me on a few occasions. Many times at the Royal Hawaiian years ago. It was embedded in the patina of the place. Once at the Mai Kai, same patina. For a flash of a second, I can smell the perfume, hear the laughing and ice clinking, see the flashes of glimmering crystal, feel the bass of the sinuous jazz deep in my belly. Then just as quick, the memory swirls away and is swallowed back into time.

Your turn!

GROG remember's GROG' mother Ba and her 3 sisters would comb the beach looking for flotsam and jetsam which GROG' grampa Eli would make into furniture and decorations. He would also carve Tikis and decorate places in a nautical or tiki theme. And then they had a store at Disneyland for a number of years. Those were fun times.

Oh wait a minute....... that was Bamboo Ben, not GROG.

Oops!! Never mind.

One of my earliest memories is going to the Enchanted Tiki Room with my father and wondering why the ground wasn't wet when we left the building. I was sure the storm was real!

I think I used to own this mug when I was younger..

..when I saw this one in a store I thought "Oh there is that vase we used to fight over", I think we used to put action figures in the dry ice pocket and pretend it was tank.

On 2009-04-20 19:00, Hau 'oli Tiki wrote:
I just realised, as I was looking through old photos... the tiki spirit was with me as a child! My Nana, who is celebrating her 97th Birthday this month, was the one who transferred the Aloha spirit of Mana. With out knowing it.

I had a similar experience. I posted my story a few years ago in a Savage Renewal thread. (Kind of long to repost here so I just added the link.)

Once when I was about 7 years old I went to see the local production of South Pacific. I got kicked out for acting like a jackass, but I remember the woman in grass skirts!

On 2009-04-24 10:37, tiki-riviera wrote:

Once when I was about 7 years old I went to see the local production of South Pacific. I got kicked out for acting like a jackass, but I remember the woman in grass skirts!

he meant to say "7 months ago". and yes, setting the costumes on fire with the flaming poi balls was quite the act of jackassery!

Here's my little story. . . .
I've lived in Orange County, CA pretty much my whole life, so the architecture and vibe was all around me from early on. I remember a lot of the apartment buildings and bowling alleys that are unfortunately now gone. I only went to Disneyland a couple of times as a kid but I remember the Tiki Room really made me sit in awe with my eyeballs wide open! When the tiki's started chanting, I was ready to go native!

At home my parents listened to Exotica music and Jazz, I would put Martin Denny's Exotica on the Hi-Fi, lay on the floor listening and stare at the picture on the cover, thinking the woman looked like my mom. She didn't, but it was my little brain imagining my mom as being soooo glamorous! That album was really the soundtrack to some of the happiest parts of my childhood. We also had Ritual of the Savage and a bunch of stuff like Les Paul and Mary Ford, Bird and Miles and random modern jazz that I was quite fond of too.

My immediate family wasn't that big on the Polynesian or party thing but my aunt and uncle were avid party throwers. My uncle was a big kahuna in the OC surf scene at that time (late 50's - 60's) so they lived a pretty esoteric lifestyle. They had a lot of friends who were kind of "colorful" that came to these parties. He had quite an interesting history and was very charismatic, my aunt was charming and a very warm and welcoming person and an amazing cook so people really flocked to them. (I told this story to Big Toe a few weeks back and he flipped, he knows who my uncle was. But to me they were just my cool Aunt Patty and Uncle Blackie!)

On party days my dad and uncle would take a friend's boat over to Catalina Island in the morning and skin dive for abalone. They were plentiful during those years and you didn't have to dive too deep to harvest them. They would come home with burlap sacks full of abalone and we'd prep them for the barbeque. Their house was in Seal Beach right on the sand, so we'd play music eat abalone and corn on the cob and hang out at the beach. The adults would be drinking cocktails and smoking and used the abalone shells as ashtrays, and of course us kids would be running around playing on the beach (we used the shells to dig holes and then shove each other into them :wink: ). I don't really remember tikis in their yard, but there was a patio behind a short wall (so they could see right to the water) and it was all tropically landscaped.

I just mostly remember the great feeling of being at their house, the music, the beach, everyone laughing, talking and enjoying themselves, and the simple fresh food. So my adult fantasy is living on the beach on a tropical island somewhere, surfing, fishing, picking mangos, and living a simple life with Ohana love and laughter all around!

oopise, double clicked.

[ Edited by: Kiki von Tiki 2009-04-26 11:14 ]

Great stories!!

LOVE to hear about back in the day!

'Fell in what became lifelong-love with the entire concept as a single-digit-ager watching the original South Pacific movie and Adventures In Paradise.

Cool story Kiki - the only Blackie I know of is Anthony Kiedis' dad. My folks were mixed up with the wrong crowd - you know, opera, ballet, symphony...blech! Now, if you want to talk about sitting on the steps in the opera house watching some fat guy belching out unintelligible blather to overly-stuffy music OR same scenario only watching the overly-stuffed crotch of a danceur (sp? male equivelent of a ballerina) with the same music - well, I'm your gal!

Parents watching "Adventures In Paradise" on the black and white tube TV.

"borrowing" my Dad's Les Baxter albums when i was a teenybopper in the late 50s & early 60s...

being the only one in my diddy bop high school gang who thought Quiet Village was a cool song...

secretly enjoying Herb Alpert and his TJ Brass!

my dad also took me to see the film South Pacific... Bali Hai mesmerized me!

and oh yes, watching Adventures in Paradise... great stuff!

and how, how i ask you could i have forgotten Hawaiian Eye!!

[ Edited by: Lokepa 2010-09-27 05:50 ]