We’re staying in a tentalow at Camp Olowalu on Maui. The memorial services are over. We’re enjoying the location, steps to the beach where we can kayak among humpback whales or dive over Olowalu Reef.
The tentalows are permanent canvas structures — think Curry Village but with a hot shower built in. As I’ve come up from an ocean swim or a kayaking adventure and taken a hot shower, it revived a formative experience from my youth.
My grandparents moved to San Clemente, California when my brother and I were small. Their house was perhaps half a mile from the ocean and, even before I could swim, my grandfather would take us to the beach where we would body surf and play in the sand. (Yes, I could body surf before I could swim. No, I don’t think that’s acceptable safety practice, but I seem to have survived.) Afterwards, my grandfather would drive us home where we would rinse the sand off with the garden hose (brrrr!) then go inside for a hot shower. While we were showering, my grandmother would make hot raisin toast: slices of cinnamon-raisin bread, spread generously with margarine, and heated under the broiler just until soft.
This ritual continued (with the periodic addition of banana malts) for years. Eventually, I’d walk to the beach on my own carrying my surfboard, and then I’d drive in my brother’s VW microbus. And always, a hot shower and raisin toast would follow.
—2p