Galen Fox grew up during the time Waikiki felt like a Hawaiian place.

Rose Wilson used to think of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel gardens and the beach fronting the Halekulani Hotel as her private preserve.

Joan Ka au‘a looks back with fondness on her days as a member of the exclusive “Bambooz” surf club.

For Gloria Tamashiro, Waikiki brings back memories of Dad and the best won ton mein in town.

For Loretta Lee Kahele, Loretta Keanu and their friends, Waikiki will always mean the theater.

For Laola Lake, Waikiki is the place of her baptism — as a surfer.

Dermot Ornelles, born in Waikiki, has so many stories, he can hardly choose just one.

They are just a handful of the more than 50 people who responded to our call for essays detailing Waikiki memories, apropos of Bishop Museum’s exhibit by that name, which opens next weekend.

In a day when locals are prone to saying they never go near the place, it is surprising and enlightening to see how many people’s hearts do yearn for Waikiki still, and how vividly they were able to relate the reasons why this place is so extraordinarily special to them. Several letter writers said they planned to have their ashes scattered there — even some who live far away now.

These are just a few excerpts from the letters we received.

Lalani Village

“Before there was a Polynesian Cultural Center, there was Lalani Village in Waikiki. It was on the corner of Kalakaua and Paoakalani, where the Hawaiian Waikiki Beach Hotel is now, and consisted of a big main house with smaller huts clustered around it. The village was the idea of George and Elizabeth Mossman, who I came to know as simply Uncle George and Aunty Elizabeth. Their hope was to gather in one spot as many of the older Hawaiian artists and craftspeople (as possible), so both local people and visitors could hear, see and learn what those cultural experts had to offer. My mother, Pansy Stagner, was taking chanting, or ‘oli, from an old gentleman, Kauluwaemaka Palea. Palea had been brought to the village by the Mossmans in his late 80s and was to teach until his death at 104 years of age. There were others singers, dancers, weavers, lei-makers, carvers and the like there.”

— Ishmael W. Stagner II, Kaneohe

Old-time trolleys

“I visited Waikiki in 1924 and ’28, first as a radio operator on the old Matson Lurline and then as radio operator on the American President Line President Jackson. … Today, Waikiki is flooded with small motor buses called Waikiki Trolleys. There used to be a Waikiki Trolley that took you from downtown Honolulu to Waikiki. It was an electric trolley and it traveled on a trestle through an area that was called the duck ponds. That was before the Ala Wai Canal was built to drain the ponds. The original Waikiki Trolleys had bench seats along both sides of the trolley, facing out. There was a foot rest outside each bench and you could board the trolley by stepping on the footrest and sitting down. The conductor would move down the center and collect the fares. It ended up on Kalakaua and provided easy access to the Moana, then the only beach hotel in Waikiki.”

— Lee R. Dawson, Honolulu

A Hawaiian place

“Those of us who grew up in Waikiki during the Territorial period lived with the romance and beauty people miss today. … Life was good, and inexpensive. My parents paid $75 a month for our two-bedroom bungalow on Tusitala Street (from 1945 to ’51), right next to the banyan tree where Robert Louis Stevenson read to the beautiful Princess Kaiulani. … We had a grass area called ‘the court’ in front of our house, shared with several other bungalows, all with families. The kids could all play in ‘the court’ and any of the mothers could keep track of us. … Our family used to paddle across the canal in a war surplus life raft and picnic on the mauka bank. And almost every day we made the short walk to Kuhio Beach, the perfect place for kids to enjoy the water. … Life was easy in other ways. Kalakaua Avenue catered to residents, with businesses serving all our needs. I especially remember the buffet at the Waikiki Sands — all you could eat for 75 cents, with an ocean view. Waikiki was safe. It was green. it was for families. And it was a wonderful mix of residents and visitors.”

— Rep. Galen Fox, Waikiki

Usherettes remember

“The most popular place for locals to end up in Waikiki (in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s) was the famous Waikiki Theater. It had a special allure as a place where you could enjoy a good movie, admire the attractive usherettes, and in addition, be entertained with familiar melodies by the organist Ed Sawtell. … We former Waikiki Theater usherettes remember vividly that the first thing we were required to do upon being hired was to memorize the alphabet backwards (so as to lead people to their seats in the alphabetized rows). We were issued standard uniforms, had evening lineups for inspection, and were given specific assignments. Every night, Ruby, the lei seller across the street, would provide us with flowers for our hair. As you entered the foyer of the theater, you were greeted and assigned to an usher by our ‘Center Spot,’ an usherette dressed in a black costume with red malo, orange feather lei, a beautiful gold flowing cape of black and gold and a headdress (replica of one worn by King Kamehameha). The theater invariably had a sellout every Friday night at its ‘First Vue.’ If you were a regular at the ‘First Vue,’ which started at 10:15 p.m., you remember how hectic it was trying to clear the foyer. But we always managed to seat sometimes as many as five couples at a time by placing their tickets in between our fingers (which took a lot of practice) as we escorted them to their seats.”

— Loretta Lee Kahele and Loretta Bauman Keanu, Honolulu

Always home

“People I meet are astounded that someone actually grew up in Waikiki. I look at them and say it was a magnificent place. … The grounds of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel were my playground. We had a home on Saratoga Road, so it was an easy walk. The employees got used to the pesky kid who had the run of the grounds. I would visit all the shops and greet the employees who had befriended me. I danced in the Monarch room on the tops of my dad’s shoes wearing my red plaid taffeta ball gown. Every time I return home, I look with sadness at the postage stamp my park has become. … I always swam in front of the Halekulani Hotel. My mother could never get us out of the water. She would just pick up and start walking along the sea wall. We would rush out in a panic, believing that she was leaving us. I realize now that the other beachgoers got a chuckle at this weekly ritual. I also remember the rock that sits out in front of the House Without a Key. My friends would put up a flag there and hope I would see it as my plane descended after being away at college. They would place bets on how long it would take me to get down to the beach. Waikiki was, and is, and always will be, home.”

— Rose Renter Wilson, Lafayette, Calif.

The Bambooz club

“The summer of 1949 was special at Waikiki. I was then a sophomore. Kui Lee, his sister Leilani, Merlyn (Mokihana) Kia‘aina, Bev Rivera (Miss Hawaii, 1950), Claire Heen (Miss Hawaii 1951), ‘Dead Eye,’ McCarthy, Chubby, Hax, Ellen and me created our own private club, ‘Bambooz,’ by the bamboo fence between Judge Steiner’s property and the Waikiki Tavern. Surfing, playing music, chowing down on pork and bean sandwiches when hunger brought us to shore. A young Mainland haole joined us: Johnny Sheffield, who had been ‘Boy,’ in the ‘Tarzan’ movies. He brought a huge, non-wooden board with him that summer, our first look at such a thing. We’d go night surfing, and he’d let out a Tarzan yell, startling the guests at the Moana, much to our delight. If it was really high tide, we’d sneak into the hotel, run up the stairs to the second floor and jump into the waves breaking below. We’d hang around when ‘Hawaii Calls’ was being broadcast, not for the music, but to check out the ‘kumus’ (cute boys). Waikiki was ours!”

— Joan C. Ka au‘a, Hilo

Restaurant recalled

“ ‘Me, P.Y.Chong!,’ he brashly called himself, and so he was known far and wide, the original owner of the world-famous Waikiki Lau Yee Chai restaurant, building in 1929 at the corner of Kuhio and Kalakaua Avenues. … My dad was a waiter at the restaurant. His uniform consisted of a solid blue cheong sam and black satin Chinese cap with a flashy red button on top. There were times when he needed a fresh uniform and would call home for it. Then I would take the parcel of clothing to him, riding the streetcar all the way from downtown, where we lived, to Waikiki. The decor at the entryway was awesome. Past the ornate moon gate doorway was a red, fenced-in fish pond with carps and a rock garden taller than myself. A man-made waterfall greeted me. It was in this restful atmosphere that I would be served a steaming bowl of won ton mein made by my dad. I savored and slurped it slowly, making it last as long as possible. I know he loved me.”

— Gloria B. K. Tamashiro, Honolulu

An initiation to surfing

“My love affair with Waikiki began in the ’50s. It was quite a frightening experience, one of those rites of passage that surfers put their children through. My dad paddled me out on his redwood surf board to what felt to me was a mile out to sea. (We were in waist-high water on the San Souci side of the Natatorium.) He centered me on the board, got off of it and told me to get ready as he was going to push me on the next wave. I remember screaming, ‘NO, NO, NO! It’s too biiiiiig!!!,’ but my screams were drowned out by the thunderous sound of the whitewater of what must have been at least a 12-inch high wave. My fear melted into joy as I rode toward shore. I had been baptized a surfer. Waikiki would be my surf playground, and I would hone my skills in surfing, canoe paddling and canoe surfing. I would live with my family in the Royal Hawaiian Cottages (where the Sheraton Waikiki now stands). My friends and I would surf until dark, then paddle in and sit on our boards listening to my dad and the rest of the Kahauanu Lake Trio play Hawaiian music at Halekulani. I would go on to win two state surfing titles and one U.S. surfing title in these waters.”

Laola Lake, Lihue, Kauai

A fleet of ‘tin canoe boats’

“Where the parking lot for the Honolulu Zoo is now was once a marsh that exited to the ocean at the end of Kapahulu Avenue. As kids, we would build ‘tin canoe boats’ from galvanized iron sheets we ‘borrowed’ from construction sites. We would nail a 2-by-4 to the front as a bow and a bigger piece in the back, add an outrigger made from hau trees, which at that time were abundant, and sometimes a sail. We would seal the pukas with tar from the road that we would scrape up on hot days. Once, as a 12-year-old, I was off Waikiki fishing in my tin canoe boat with a sail, and I fell asleep and was awakened by a loud blast from a Coast Guard boat. They wanted to know what in tarnation I was doing about three miles out to sea in my little T.C.B.”

— Dermot J. Ornelles, Honolulu