Coconut palms and banyan trees and coral sands and Tonkinese

This conch shell has traveled a long way. It made its journey 65 years ago. My father brought it -- and many other souvenirs -- back from the island of Bougainville in the South Pacific after World War II. It now sits on a railing on my deck. (Don Dale photo, 2010)

My connection to "South Pacific" is personal.

Last week I watched the "Live from Lincoln Center" telecast on PBS of the first New York revival of the beloved Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. It was first staged on Broadway in 1949 -- just 4 years after the end of World War II.

For those who haven't seen it, here's a little background. The story unfolds in 1943, as the U.S. Navy has established bases in the New Hebrides islands in preparation for a move north through the Slot that runs up through the center of the Solomon Islands.

If you watched the Lincoln Center telecast closely, you might have seen an enormous map in several scenes. At the top of that map is the northernmost of the Solomon Islands, Bougainville, just east of New Guinea. That's where my dad went ashore with the Navy's Seabees in the attack at Empress Augusta Bay on November 1, 1943. The Marines were first to land on the island, and the Seabees followed closely behind to rebuild the Japanese airstrip for U.S. use. The island wasn't completely cleared when the Seabees landed, and there were enough Japanese left in the early days to make the operation tricky and dangerous.

My dad, of course, survived the war, and when I was little, before "South Pacific" debuted in 1949 (when I was 8), there were lots of reminders of his time in the Solomons all around me. He talked about it, but usually in a light-hearted manner with other men in the family who were veterans. Most of the conversations I overheard as a child were between my dad and my Uncle Joe, who was a young Army troop on Corregidor when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor -- and the Philippines. He was captured and spent the duration in a POW camp in Japan under grueling, inhuman conditions. I say "overheard," because if I made any noise or tried to ask questions, the conversation would stop: The subject was considered too rough for kids. But I could listen if I kept quiet.

I grew up knowing about the Coast Watchers, who figured into "South Pacific," and The Slot, and malaria, and pineapple plantations, and bare-chested native women, and Americans flushing Japanese out of caves with flame throwers (the very thought of which terrified me more than the idea of bullets flying).

After my parents died, I kept many of my dad's souvenirs of the Solomons, including a wicked Japanese dagger and sheath, a necklace made of a cat's eye shell, a handful of tiny cowry shells, a pair of mahogany bookends, a couple of big conch shells, and picture frames made from Bougainville mahogany with screws and Perspex from the windshields of planes that were shot down over the island. (The frames enclose images of me and my mom that she sent him during the war.)

"South Pacific" debuted in 1949. The Rodgers and Hammerstein songs were all over the radio.

My dad was never big on musicals, but when the road-show version came to the Mosque in, I believe, 1950 or 51, my mom and her best friend, Edith Waldbauer, bought tickets early. I found the yellowing playbill for the road show among my mom's things after she died.

The 45-rpm Broadway cast recording of "South Pacific" also came out in 1949. My Uncle Joe -- the ex-POW -- was a commercial- and short-wave-radio zealot. He had his own short-wave station in his basement. When TV took off, he had the first set I ever saw, which he built from a Heathkit, I think. I remember watching "Toast of the Town" (the predecessor to the "Ed Sullivan Show") at his house one Sunday evening.

To bring this back on point, Uncle Joe bought one of those early stand-alone RCA 45 turntables, and when he later moved up to the newest version, he gave me that 45 player for Christmas. It must have been about 1952. He also gave me some 45s, including "Some Enchanted Evening," one of the hit "South Pacific" songs, by Perry Como. I still had it in 1958, when the "South Pacific" movie was released. I was 16.

The movie played as a road show (reserved seating and tickets) at the Loews Theater downtown. My mom and dad had bought our house in Lakeside about 18 months earlier, so money was tight. They didn't go to see the movie in its first run. But I was working part-time at Miller & Rhoads as a stock boy, and I used my own money to order a single ticket through the mail. I rode the bus downtown to see the movie by myself. I loved it.

That was my first real exposure to a story I had always associated with my dad. Right afterwards, I went to Miller & Rhoads and spent, if I recall correctly, about 5 bucks for the 45 rpm EP boxed soundtrack of the movie, which I played endlessly in my room.

I have watched the movie on TV many, many times since, and it always holds up. I never really tire of it.

In 2001, I watched the "South Pacific" made-for-TV movie with Glenn Close as nurse Nellie Forbush and Harry Connick Jr. as Lt. Joe Cable, a Coast Watcher. Glenn Close was far too old for the part, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Many of the scenes were rearranged, and some of the songs were dropped, but it was still a chance to see a different take on an old favorite.

In 2006, I watched the PBS telecast of the concert version of the musical from Carnegie Hall, which included the full score. It starred Reba McEntire as Nellie Forbush, the young nurse so far away from her home in Arkansas. Reba made an excellent Nellie, especially with her natural Southern accent.

And there you have it -- my personal "South Pacific" connections. Did I mention that I also read the book that the musical was based on, James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific?" No? Well, I should have. The book, of course, is nothing like the Broadway show or the movie. The seeds are there, but the narrative is not.

So forgive me if I come across sounding like a teenage drama queen when I talk about "South Pacific." Perhaps I am. But there's a good reason. The story is meaningful to me. On a very personal level.

UPDATED 12-8-2012: I received the note below via email today, Dec. 8, 2012, more than two years following my original post above. It was written by a woman in Colorado, who wanted to share her memories of coconut palms and banyan trees and coral sands and Tonkinese. I am grateful to her for emailing me.

Really enjoyed your story. I found it by googling" coconut palms and banyan trees. I did that because I just got home from Hawaii and also fell in love with South Pacific (the movie musical first) when I was a teenager.
The line from the song has been circling my brain now for days, and I couldn't for the life of me remember what came between “banyan trees” and “Tonkinese.” And there it was in your story: “coral sands.”
As a 17-year-old I played one of the nurses in “South Pacific” in a production put on by the Denver Post newspaper. It was the first of three Post musicals I was in that led me to getting a voice scholarship to college. These were big productions, put on in front of a large pavilion in Cheesman Park in Denver for a week every summer. Thousands of people came every night to see the shows, which always featured Broadway talent in the lead roles.
I also had a kind of personal connection to the musical later in my life (when I was 23). I met my then-husband in Hawaii for his R&R while he was a forward air controller serving in Viet Nam. Part of our visit was spent on Kauai at the Hanalei Plantation, which was a gorgeous hotel on the north shore. I was told that the terrace at that hotel that looked out on the Na Pali cliffs was used in the movie as the location for Emile DeBeque's terrace where he and Nellie had their one enchanted evening.
My marriage did not survive the Viet Nam war, but my memory of that lovely terrace never faded. Last week, my husband of 27 years found the Hanalei Plantation for me when we were touring Kauai. The only thing left of that beautiful place after 44 years is concrete foundations. The property is now wild and overgrown. If you walk down to the edge of the cliff you can still see the Na Pali cliffs, and there is a huge Ritz Carlton Hotel nearby. However there is nothing left of the beautiful and graceful Hanalei Plantation but memories and the promise of some developers who want to do something with the property someday soon. A security guard we met was very nice and seemed used to people coming down to see the location.
It's funny. I've been wanting to tell the story of that terrace and my own connection to it. Stumbling upon your story gave me a way to do that. I know it has been a while since your wrote it, but I wanted you to know it touched me and put another layer of meaning to my own experiences. Thank you.