I did a little googling and found the quote i was asking about being posted on Texas Darlin. It came from pg. 61 of the original “Dreams” book.
“A month. That’s how long we would have together,the five of us in my grandparents’living room most evenings,during the day on drives around the island or on short walks past the private landmarks of a family: the lot where my father’s apartment had once stood; the remodelled hospital where I had been born; my grandparents’ first house in Hawaii, before the one on University Avenue, a house I had never known.”
Some questions:
1. Why are they visiting the “lot where my father’s apartment once stood”? Why wouldn’t he say the apartment or the house where my mother and father had once lived? We have the apparent address of that house—wouldn’t they want to see that “landmark”?
2. We know the locations of his father’s ‘homes’ while he was a student in Hawaii. Have any of these places been knocked down, left as an open lot, or rebuilt?
3.Which hospital was “remodeled” by 1971? Are any of O Sr.’s living spaces near this hospital? Is the Dunham apartment near this hospital? I know mentioning this hospital does not prove he was actually born in it but that he may have been told that he was. However, if he was born in Honolulu in a hospital, does this little word,”remodeled”, provide us with a clue about where?
I also realize that since this is from “Dreams” it may just be all a piece of BO’s imaginagion.
Also notice how close they are to Punahou school. I need to map out the birth annoucement address it might be closer to Queen's Hospital.
Re: this:
my grandparents’ first house in Hawaii, before the one on University Avenue, a house I had never known.”
My thought is that house - the first house - is the address referenced in the birth announcement. I think it was the grandparents' house and I think they rented - just my gut on that.