nanilaie.info

Lately we’ve been experiencing what passes here for Hawaii winter weather, and quite frankly for the fully acclimatized, it’s been down-right chilly: People wear jackets and sweaters all day long, put extra blankets on the bed at night, drink more hot chocolate, sleep with their socks on, etc.

For example…

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First, let me pay tribute to all those currently serving and who have served in the military, especially including my dad, the late F. W. “Mike” Foley — who met my mom while he was stationed at the U.S. Army’s Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah, and was also a member of the motorcycle honor guard when President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Hoover Dam near Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 30, 1935; and my brothers-in-law, Jimmy and the late Eddie McShane, who served in the U.S. Army in Viet Nam.

Next, let me note that I appreciate the service and sacrifice of all those in the military, but I was never one of them. Coming of age during the Viet Nam war, however, I came close a couple of times, and was willing to serve if called . . . which forms the basis of my following recollections:

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People from all over the world have been praying for and following the story of Gavin David Bruce Norton, the eight-week old son of Richie Norton and his wife, Natalie Link Norton, who was born in Hawaii on October 24, 2009 and died in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 7, 2010. [The picture at upper left, taken of Natalie and Gavin by Richie...and many more examples of Natalie's family and wedding photography can be seen on her blog, Picks & Kicks, at http://www.natalienortonphoto.com/].

The Nortons and their beautiful young family have many friends, and many thousands of others around the globe became aware of the medical challenges baby Gavin faced through Natalie’s contributions and links on her Digital Photography School web site — http://digital-photography-school.com/author/aloha . . . while only a few hundred of us were able to gather in the Laie 4th Ward chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this morning, January 13, 2010, to take part in the deeply touching experience of baby Gavin’s funeral.

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I’ve been a freelance mass communications specialist for the past eight-plus years, and I can honestly say I love what I do — especially working with the relatively new digital media. The majority of my work over most of these years, however, has usually centered on writing and often illustrating my articles with pictures I’ve taken.

Writing and photography (along with my other skills) have enabled my family and I to live for many years and work close to home in Laie, a place I truly love. In fact, most of my freelance work is done in my home office . . . but over the years my work has also taken me far afield. For example, I’ve done assignments throughout Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand, China, Mongolia and Korea. Some of my other work has also taken me throughout the Pacific islands and various parts of Asia.

I’ve done stories on a wide variety of subjects and people of very diverse backgrounds, such as my earlier blog entries on Margaret Mead (http://nanilaie.info/?p=404) and Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II (http://nanilaie.info/?p=327).

Recently, since it appears that my writing days for BYU–Hawaii may have come to a close sooner than I expected, I’ve been going through my old assignments, and thought you might enjoy reading (again, for a number of you) about a few of the intriguing people I’ve met, the places I’ve visited and subjects I’ve explored through my writing for this unique university which has had such a profound affect on my life. I encourage you to click through the links below for more information on…

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I learned one of my most useful skills in life in the late 1950s when I was in the 8th grade at Roosevelt Junior High School in Salt Lake City, Utah — touch typing. For that I must thank a most unusual teacher: Miss Bertha Rappaport.

Anybody who took beginning typing from her back in the day at “Rosey” could probably tell similar tales, and you might be interested in my following recollections; but before I get into the tiger of touch-typing teachers, a little background:

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I was reading a novel the other day which included an ice storm in its plot. Now, I essentially spent my first 20 years growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah, so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to experience snow and ice as well as Utah’s deep “powder” at places like Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Park City … but up to now I’ve only been in one ice storm [such as the one pictured at right]:

I’ve forgotten the year, but back in the 1980s when I was working in the Polynesian Cultural Center’s Sales and Marketing office in Waikiki, I was sent in March on an American Airlines travel consumer show to Raleigh, North Carolina. The long flight into Raleigh had actually been delayed several days by a very bad storm, and ours was the first allowed to land one very foggy morning. Much to my surprise, everything was heavily covered with ice, as in the picture at the right. I mean, as I drove out of the airport in my rental car I  saw an inch or more of clear ice sealing in cars, power lines, signs, and so forth. In fact, lots of power lines had succumbed to the extra weight of the ice, likewise tree limbs had snapped off under the extra burden.

It was quite fascinating to me. But then, after just a little while, a more interesting aspect of the ice storm started…

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I was picking a couple of ‘ulu [breadfruit] the other day from my neighbor’s tree that hangs over into our yard . . . and it got me thinking about the bright green little ‘ulu tree that President Eric Shumway and a number of others planted during the Church College of Hawaii/Brigham Young University–Hawaii  jubilee celebration in 2005 near the cafeteria entrance and the sidewalk leading back to the dorms. As members of the Jubilee steering committee, we all felt the symbolism of the ‘ulu carrying into the next 50 years was perfect: An ancient Polynesian staple, beautiful tree, long-lived, prolific, multiple uses of all parts of the tree, etc.

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In the wake of news from the September 29, 2009, earthquake and tsunami damage in Samoa, I was recently reading some Samoa history, and the following few factoids caught my interest enough to share them: (more…)

A friend emailed this message to me a couple of years ago and, in case you haven’t seen it, I thought I would pass it along:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Such a cdonition is arppoiately cllaed Typoglycemia

Anzamig huh? Yaeh, and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt. (more…)

I recently saw something that brought back a few unusual memories of things that used to be relatively common, but now not so much: I’m talking about road-kill and how the nature of it changes over time and from place to place. (more…)