Papa Dave's Yard, Studio City California
We have heard of Papa Hemingway, now you will hear about my Papa Dave, the Grand Poobah of #Polynesian kitsch
Papa Dave’s Backyard- Studio City California
In Childhood, Our Elders Show Us The Way- Wendy Abrams
My grandparents lived to travel and their yard was like a Hawaiian/Asian playground that felt like the ultimate wacky hotel. They had a Buddha shrine in their garden, a pagoda, a pool house we called the “back pad.” A mermaid was affixed to the pool house and the sliding glass door was our domain to Heaven for the weekends. It smelled like Pine Sol and Ban De Soleil and the magic hit when we closed ourselves off into their wonderland of travel debris. The smell was a constant reminder of leisure and hotels and the promise of a PAN AM flight to Hawaii.
Their house was a tropical incubator off of Ventura Boulevard where magic constantly happened. The master of ceremonies was my grandfather and his love of souvenirs and trinkets and humor. There were mugs made of old salty sailors, a bar completely lined with mugs out of the Pirates of the Caribbean, troll dolls with red, blue and yellow hair, ale mugs, leather bar stools.
Mexican maracas, hula skirts, shelled necklaces and coconut cups and troll dolls completely inhabited my childhood and my sense of play. My grandfather was the grand kahuna with a constant tan, pot belly, a sense of humor that was adorable.
When my sister and I would play in what felt like a mix between the Flintsone’s Bedrock and Elvis Presley’s Blue Hawaii; life didn't get much better.
The back pad had tons of instruments, cookware, cocktail umbrellas, leis, tikis and dolls to keep us engaged for days. I floated in my grandfather’s pool on his big raft with Styrofoam drink- holders and lawn chair netting. I imagined myself at the in Kauai or on a raft in a pool on the Kanapali Coast. My grandfather looked like a Hawaiian Chieftain with his big belly and dark tan always laughing and encouraging us to stay. After a day in the pool, a bucket of Amber’s fried chicken and another round of playing with the tropical trinkets in the back pad. For kicks my grandfather used to take me and my siblings to LAX on weekend mornings and have us call our parents to tell them we were going to Hawaii as we watched the planes take off.
I remember standing in a phone booth at LAX, looking at The Encounter restaurant feeding the pay phone and calling my mom, “Papa is taking us to Hawaii today!” He just laughed jingle coins in his jumpsuit pocket as we shuttled back into his car. A warped but slightly hilarious outing, we happily jumped in the car and let him take us to watch the jets because we occasionally did go to the islands and get the Aloha spirit. His vision was to instill a little magic at home and bring indigenous clues from the field igniting our desire. It certainly worked on me.