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"Christmas" -- The
ultimate ecumenical holiday: A pagan ritual, observed by Christians, to
celebrate the birth of a Jew.
So... Merry Christmas, everybody.
And a joyous Winter Solstice and Happy Hannukah.
That should take care of just about everybody...
Ann has always wanted to send out
one of those folksy "Holiday Newsletters" like so many of our
friends send with their Christmas cards every year. Paul, of course, wanted
to go hi-tech and put it on the web. So, here it is, our Hi-Tech Happy
Holidays Newsletter on the web...it's got lots of pictures, so we hope
your system is fast enough for the downloads...
This has been a good year for the
Schatzkins... Paul got his book published, Ann saw one of her kids graduate
from college. As usual, there was plenty of travel - some planned,
some unplanned, as we'll get into shortly...
| Our big trip this year was to Maui... Paul lived there
from 1980 until 1992, and so had a lot of old friends to visit. He'd
been back a time or two over the past few years, mostly brief visits
to reclaim a few personal effects, but hadn't really spent any appreciable
time there since he'd moved to Nashville in 1994. And Ann had never
been to Hawaii... so it was time... |
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Click
any picture to see the enlargement
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We spent our first four days in an idyllic "bamboo
hut" along the windward, northeastern shore... |
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The "Bamboo Temple," as its owners liked to call it, was
a great place to relax, have a massage, and sun rose in the big window
in front of our bed every morning. |
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After a few days decompressing on the laid-back "Hana side"
of the island, we headed around to the old whaling port of Lahaina,
where Paul lived in the 80s. First stop... Lahaina Yacht Club. |
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LYC is not so much a proper "yacht club" as it is a restaurant
and bar - with one of the best views on the island. Paul had kept
his membership at LYC for the past six years at $150/yr. So when
we sat down to lunch, we figured the first bite of that "cheeseburger
in paradise"cost about $50 on an amortized basis. Back in the
80s, Paul owned a yacht charter service, taking tourists sailing
and snorkeling on the "Scotch Mist" out of Lahaina Harbor.
One of his crew members was Colleen Murphy...
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...who went back to work for American Airlines in about 1982. It
had probably been 20 years since Paul and Colleen had seen each other,
but the minute we walked into LYC who should come flying out her seat
to greet us but... yup... there she was. |
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A similar encounter took place one night when we were dining at
the Haillemaille (repeat after me: Hi-Lee-Mi-Lee) General Store.
One person Paul hoped to catch up with was Marie Thoma, who'd served
on the crew of the Scotch Mist II, along with her husband, the late
Captain Al Thoma. Paul looked up from a bite of whatever Hawaiian
delicacy he was "grindin'" and there she was. We made
plans to have lunch with Marie Thoma as well as Marie Glodt, aka
"Marie II" who was a marketing and sales manager for Paul
and now has her own travel agency, traveltomaui.net.
We also had lunch later in the week with Bobbo Stanford and Alison
Glerum, two other alumni from the Scotch Mist days.
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Later that week, we finagled a sail aboard the Scotch Mist, and
the boat was joined by a pod of dolphins frolicking off the Lahaina
shore. |
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On the west wide of Maui, we stayed at a condo near Napili Bay.
Every morning, we took our coffee on the deck and watched the humpback
whales swimming off-shore. |
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And every evening, when we returned from whatever adventure we'd
been on each day, we would return to the deck to watch the spectacular
Maui sunsets. |
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Just around the corner from Napili Bay, we found Honokeana Cove,
which, we discovered, is a haven for green sea turtles. |
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Another adventure took us "Upcountry" to the slopes of
Mt. Haleakala, the dormant volcano that formed Maui millennia ago.
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The views from Upcountry are spectacular, and the
protea flowers found there are unique to Maui.
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Another one of our Maui adventures took us to the very top of Haleakala
for the "Maui Downhill" - a 38-mile bicycle ride that descends
10,000 to sea level. |
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| One of our last nights, we took a sunset sail aboard
the Scotch Mist II with the Captain Reverend Gene Perkins. Gene is
another grizzled veteran of the Scotch Mist staff... dating all the
way back to dry-dock with the Scotch Mist I in the early 80s... |
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