Some philosophical thoughts on collecting Tiki?

I recently made my first post to Tiki Central. That was my introduction. I mentioned early memories I had of Tiki and of a restaurant in Syracuse NY called Soo Lins. Sabu the Coconut Boy kindly responded, "You've already contributed to this site. I bet several Tiki menu and ephemera collectors have now added "Soo Lin" to their eBay search parameters". That got me thinking about a couple of things. Soo Lins has been gone for probably 20 years. If I could find a mug or a menu from the place it would probably be like the 'Tiki Grail' for me. But memory is a funny thing. I bet a lot of people have seen the movie "A Christmas Story" and probably fewer have read the book it's based on. Anyways, Ralphie, the main character, wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. He describes the item in detail and all of its' features. After the story became popular people started looking for the gun. Problem was it didn't exist. At least not the way the author remembered it. All the features he described were real but Daisy had never included all those features in one single BB gun. Of course the marketing people at Daisy were no dummies and so soon there was a production of Daisy Red Ryders that matched the author's recollections (we don't all have that kind of power). When I was a young boy I loved watching "The Rat Patrol" on TV, a black and white series about a Jeep based commando unit that operated in the desserts of North Africa during WWII. My friends and I had Rat Patrol models and we played Rat Patrol in the woods behind my house (back then a 10 or 12 year old boy could make the woods behind his house into the desserts of North Africa with no problem). Well the series came out on DVD and it was disappointing for me to see it. The characters were one-dimensional and I swear it must have been basically the same plot every week. I found it hard to believe I had enjoyed it so much. If you must watch a vintage TV series about WWII I would recommend "Combat", but of course that one did nothing for me at the time. The point I'm getting to is that I'm not going to stop looking for things like a menu from Soo Lins but I'm well aware of the danger that it may not measure up to what I remember. Any other collectors out there have similar thoughts? Also, I think I'm a pretty fun guy most of the time and I don't always get this philosophical (my daughter wouldn't say philosophical she'd say boring). And I'm a newbie here so I don't know what I'm doing. If I have posted this in the wrong place many sorrys.

welcome aboard!!!

..i had a similiar experience.....when i was kid, i loved to watch "Kolchak: night stalker", which basiclly was the predessesor to the x-files which came years later.....i remembered how cool it was at the time and how scary it was for a kid.......so i bought the first season on dvd, not to relive anything,but to see these episodes as an adult now.....It's not that it was a total dissapointment...looking at this series through the eyes of an adult with 25 some odd more years experience on me, i could appreciate things about it that as a child i never would have understood or cared about...but the special effects were horrific...at the time they seemed like the height of hollywood sci-fi but now they are outright laughable.......the plots too, were often far fetched. but as a child, i never would have known they were so outrageous.....i was just groovin on being entertained.....I have had similiar experiences with the caradine kung-fu series and that old 70's flick, the gargoyles, which i found on ebay on dvd.....these monsters scared the crap out of me as a kid......i gotta admit, the costumes are still really creepy in this one, even now, but the acting and story are ridiculous......we've all grown up. In another 20 years, the films we thought were so cool today may well fall into the same situation.....who knows.

Tipsy McStagger you are too funny. We have to be contemporaries. Gargoyles!! I didn't think anyone else on the planet had seen that one. I watched it on TV as a kid and it scared the crap out of me. I got it on VHS about 10 years ago and made my kids watch it. They were, "Dad, this is so lame..." Yes, it's cheesy but you have to admit that halter top on the anthropologist's daughter is an American classic. Kolchak was a groundbreaking pioneer. My parents actually named one of my younger brothers after Darren McGavin. Nice to meet a kindred spirit. Aloha.

I had the same experience with the Don Knotts/Tom Conway film The Private Eyes. Bringing this back to tiki, I will say that my adult experience in Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room has far exceeded my childhood recollections of it.

Philosophically speaking, I think Tiki means different things to different people depending on several different variables, but especially where people are from. For people who grew up in Hawaii or other places close to lots of Tiki events and artifacts, there is less of a shock factor when they come across Tiki stuff than someone like me, who lives in an area where we have a stroke if we stumble upon anything even remotely tiki-like. Regardless of where you're from, though, I think that once a person becomes interested in Tikis and Tiki Culture, there is no going back, most notably because there are so many variations of Tiki imagery, art, etc. that is being produced right now.

I don't think there is a guy my age who...if asked what option he would like on a Jeep, wouldnt like a Rat-Patol gun. That show (while really shallow) was iconically fantastic.

Remember the Night Stalker when the suit of Armour came to life? (I think it rode a BSA and chopped people's heads off) That was a my favorite. Those shows were fantastic...If only McGavin had a dogwho ate was constantly wanting snacks it would have been perfect.