Photoessay #1322 - Hawaii and Turkey

Somehow, it feels right to feature two pictures that really don't have much to do with each other.

Can you tell that I'm doing a giant picture project and... well I'll write about this another day.

First, there's another shot from Hawaii 2007. We happened onto the Waimea Valley on the north shore of Oahu administered by the Adubun Society. Really by accident. Beautiful ancient valley, go see it. Where can you stroll through beautifully maintained tropical treasures only to end up at a beautiful pool fed by a waterfall where you can swim!

But my brother Charlie saw these big giant leaves and he thought we could pose behind them, they framed our faces quite well. And it was supposed to look like...um....big leaves in Hawaii. Sure! Great idea! So he and I are mugging for the camera and Dennis, under some pressure taking the shot. Fun! OK, you had to be there.

So I'm going through my mom's photo albums, figuring out what to toss, what to combine with my collection of photos now overflowing 4 big bill boxes, what to leave as is. I may be down to 59 photo albums in there.

In the middle of a picture of snapshots from the 1980s, there's a page of really old pictures. Including the second shot.

It's a field day, what can we figure out from this old-fashioned kitchen shot. Thanksgiving? That's a turkey? And the ancient percolator coffee pot on the stove. And the stove and oven themselves, what era are we talking about? 1940s. Very old and not very elegant. What's the round thing on the side of the oven? Maybe this sheds some light on my mom's insistence that every turkey had to be cooked at least 8 hours. No matter what. You had to put it in early in the morning. And it would be done by dinner. I learned as an adult that I could cook a very large turkey (this one looks pretty small) stuffed in a fraction of the time. Really, you usually don't need more than 3.5 hours.

Wonder what year and occasion.....

Wait! Update! I just noticed this picture right next to it. Could this be the dinner table where that turkey was served? That's my maternal grandfather, Irwin Baumann (Poppy to me) and my aunt Ruth? Poppy is carving the turkey. I recognize the glass door book case behind it. I liked it but by brother or sister really wanted it. Also the somewhat squat silver candlesticks. Bread basket and a few bowls of side dishes.

Interesting not about the candlesticks. In the last weeks of her life, my mom decided that EVERYBODY should have some candlesticks. I already had some silver candlesticks. So, we collected all of the candelesticks we could find. She had a bunch but not quite enough for all of the grandchildren. But I remember these candelsticks being part of the group.

My cousin Mary Ann will correct me if I'm wrong about that.