STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS WRITING
BY DAN MILLER
(originally posted March 18, 2005)
Today is my wife Karen's birthday.
I'd been trying to come up with an essay that would blend her birthday and some other interesting stuff. Suddenly I remembered what one of my old professors told me about "stream of consciousness writing".
He said something like this: List three facts that are sorta related, then start writing around them and see where it takes you..... so here goes......
Fact #1... March 18, 195(?) is Karen's birthday.
Fact #2... March 18, 1959 is the day President Eisenhower signed a bill allowing Hawaii to become a state.
Fact #3... the official state fish of Hawaii is the humuhumunukunukuapua'a.
Now, I don't know whether humuhumunukunukuapua'a tastes better broiled, baked or fried, but I hope I never have to order it by name, or say it out loud on TV.
Some words or phrases can create an embarrassing sound when you mispronounce or misspeak them.
For example, I had a bad experience saying the words "Music City Sheraton" a few years ago.
Another one I've tripped over is "Old Fort Parkway".
Speak those two phrases quickly, several times in succession, and you might just get an idea of how they came out.
I've only been to Hawaii once. Karen and I went there in 1989. No, I didn't see Don Ho... but we did take a tour on a helicopter, and flew over Jim Nabors' Hawaiian plantation. That was interesting.
Did you know that Gomer Pyle is the only character Jim Nabors ever played? In all his years on TV, he appeared only as Gomer Pyle or himself, never another acting roll.
And I heard that when he was doing Gomer Pyle, he continued to live in a modest little upstairs apartment in Hollywood, and continued to drive a Volkswagen bug.
He saved his money, and that's the reason he could then buy that huge Hawaiian plantation that Karen and I flew over.
Here's something else. I don't believe I've ever met Jim Nabors, but we did have identical jobs at WJBF-TV in Augusta, though he was a few years before me. We were both film editors and shippers there.
And I just remembered this.... Karen and I got hopelessly lost on a beautiful golf course in Hawaii, on a magical evening with a giant rainbow stretching across the sky.
But that's another story for another time.
I hope someday we'll get back to Hawaii, perhaps for a romantic birthday dinner, with wine and humuhumunukunukuapua'a prepared just the way Karen likes it.
Happy Birthday Karen.... and I'm sure if Jim Nabors knew you, he'd wish you a happy birthday as well.
Hey, this stream of consciousness writing is great. Just like that, it created a highly entertaining and informative essay about my wife's birthday, Hawaii, and Jim Nabors.
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