The Natatorium

We have shared memories of summer houses and summer vactions at Kawela Bay and Ka'a'awa Beach. But I was reminded recently by a cousin that this blog and the Tribalpages website I've created are for MY family. This is true. My brother, sister and I have memories of beaches in Hawai'i that we've spent hours and days on that were not shared with our cousins.

We went to those beaches with my father's family-Aunty Tete, Uncle Herk, our cousin Puna and the only grandparents we knew well, Robert Napunako Boyd II and Gladys Kalaola Cockett.

I think I've been a little distracted by the upcoming Kauakahi 'Ohana Reunion and other family issues that I've forgotten to acknowledge these beach memories that we shared with our Boyd 'Ohana.

One of the sites that I do have good memories of is on an endangered historic sites list...one of the eleven most endangered, according to The National Trust for Historic Preservation, in the United States. It's not Kailua Beach, where we went on weekends with our parents. Kailua Beach seems relatively secure from being dismantled or destroyed or lost within the next few generations, thanks to it becoming the get-away of a currently famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint, I guess)Punahou alum.

It's the beach, now called Kaimana but once known as Sans Souci and the adjoining Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial.

Like all of us, it has seen better days. Its current situation is being reviewed by a task force convened by Mayor Mufi Hanneman to determine what will be done with it and how much this will cost. There is a loud and vociferous group that wants the Natatorium razed so that only the beach will remain.

For my part and the memories we have of swimming at Sans Souci, adventuring in the Natatorium (but not swimming in the pool--we weren't allowed to do that), climbing the old bleachers and scaring ourselves with spooky stories about the old changing and shower rooms--a Waikiki without the Natatorium would somehow look incomplete...as if it were like me, missing some teeth...even though the teeth were old and not pretty, they were mine.

Well...I want them to resolve this issue without touching my memories of the place too much, but that might not happen. As with the houses we've lived in that are now gone, perhaps what we will have will only be the place we remembered and not the one that is.