PHOENIX INTERVIEW: The ice cream was a reward

    From my journal, November 15, 1954, on the rough maiden voyage from Japan to Hawaii: "Skip made us a promise: for each bruise we have he will buy a chocolate soda or its equivalent when we reach Hawaii. Or, for every 10 bruises, they can have a steak dinner. Small bruises count but must be Bruises, not dirt. They have to stay three days before counted.
    "Mum has a million bruises but I've got only four."

     When we reached Honolulu a reporter from the Star-Bulletin found out about Skip's promise. The newspaper treated us all to sodas--and me to my first  banana split--setting them all in front of me for the photograph.
     This was the cover of Hawaiian Life, the week-end magazine of The Saturday Star-Bulletin, Honolulu, T.H. (Territory of Hawaii), February 5, 1955. They filled two tabloid-sized pages with quotes from the first volume of my journal plus five other photos of life aboard the Phoenix.