PEARL'S ASHES: #13 and #14--Kauai

Every so often I will explain what Pearl's Ashes are all about, as half the people reading this blog will be first-timers  While you can click on Pearl's Ashes for the full story, to summarize, my wife Pearl passed away three and a half years ago.  As a tribute to her, I chose to do two things:  plant gold trees (she is here with one of them) and drop her ashes at sites around the world that she wanted to visit, but didn't, mostly because of me.  I eventually hope to compile these into a book.

Kauai was particularly memorable because soon after our marriage we spent a blissful year there in circa 1963 while I was a C. Brewer trainee at Kilauea Sugar Company.  We went shell and  Japanese glass float (ball) beachcombing  at Anini Beach, said to have the largest reef in all of Hawaii; fishing at Kahiliwai Beach; and dancing at Coco Palms to Bunny Brown's Hilo Hawaiians playing Hanohano Hanalei (actually, I couldn't find anything about them, so this is the 1927 original from the South Sea Islanders).

On 17January2011 I visited the north side of Kauai  This is Hanalei Bay, the view I had from my room in the St. Regis Princeville:

Here is where the opening scene from South Pacific was filmed on the beach to the left (which you can't see).  So I went down to this site, where I tossed her ashes, #13, into Hanalei Bay.

We lived in a cottage (our photo to the left) and our personal backyard was the Slippery Slide waterfall from the movie, South Pacific, where Bloody Mary sang Happy Talk to France Nuyen and John  Kerr.  Click on that clip, for France looked like Pearl.  Here she is with her dog Pepper when he was still but a pup:  

He grew to 140 pounds.  

Pepper was so large that I threw a stick into the river to the left, which he brought back to me.  Then I soaped him off and back went the stick into water, hoping he was smart enough not be caught in the current that would have taken him over the waterfall.  My rationalization was that he would have survived.

We had famous stars in our backyard all the time.  I remember once a small group led by Nancy Sinatra and her husband Tommy Sands spent a few hours here. 

Forty years after the above photo of Pearl and Pepper was taken I returned to Kilauea and recaptured  that moment:

This was the site of Pearl's Ash ceremony #14.  I noticed some real estate on sale.  I think this view costs $3 million.  (Not sure what price it sold at, but notice those prices to the right.)

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