Today marks our 45th wedding anniversary. So, as I’ve done over the past few years I’ll be saying “Happy Anniversary” to an incredibly awesome woman and life partner, AND I’ll be telling the story of how Claudette pulled me off the streets of Waikiki and made me into the man I am today 😉

Some of you who’ve heard that story before might wonder, “What was Gary doing before he met Claudette?”

So that’s the story I’ll try to tell now, before I get to the one about how the surfer-looking dude on a pedi-cab met the beautiful South African girl in front of the Moana Hotel.

For me, it all started in Weedpatch, Arvin, and Bakersfield, California.

Yes, Weedpatch is the real name of a town in California. My grandparents settled there.  The Grapes of Wrath was actually filmed in Weedpatch. It’s where many post-Depression “Oakies” ended up after trekking across the Midwest, fleeing the Oklahoma Dust Bowl – the severe dust storms that ravaged the American prairies in the 1930s.

My mother Loretta Eileen Carter, her brothers and sisters, surrounded by all their worldly belongings and riding in the back of a pickup truck, were part of that migration — from Broken Bow, Oklahoma, to Weedpatch, California.

Interestingly enough, the man my mother was to eventually meet up with and marry, Marvin Lee Hooser, also ended up in Weedpatch after starting out in Natural Dam Arkansas.

I was actually born in San Diego. My father was a career Navy man, ultimately making the rank of Chief Boatswain’s Mate.

Fast forward through many, many, many stories about “growing up a Navy brat” all over the globe — in California, the Philippines, Japan, Florida; in Adak, Alaska; and finally in Hawaii, where my dad was stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1970.

I graduated (barely) from Radford High School in 1972.

Before (barely) graduating from Radford High School in 1972, I worked for EK Fernandez Shows in the concession/game area at their annual State Farm Fair and weekly carnivals. I also worked as a dishwasher at Sizzler Steak House. Over the next seven years or so, I worked as a truck driver for Attco; termite tenting guy at Orkin/ Terminix; manager trainee (bill collector) at Beneficial Finance; door-to-door salesman (fire alarms and cookware); apprentice operating engineer Local 3 (Aloha Stadium, reef runway, highway construction); a sales rep for Bose Sound Systems on Ward Avenue; a time-share sales rep for the Royal Aloha Vacation Club — and then, starting in 1979, I became a pedi-cab driver for the Open Air Pedi-Cab Co. in Waikiki.

Some might say my “pre-Claudette” days yielded a wealth of valuable experience, preparing me for that fateful Waikiki encounter.

Others will probably say it looks like I couldn’t keep a job; thank goodness she dragged me off the streets of Waikiki and whipped me into shape.

Regardless, I wouldn’t trade any of it. And although many tales remain yet untold, today is my 45th anniversary, and THIS is the story I wish to tell.

The next chapter – On the occasion of my 45th wedding anniversary

What happened after we got married? How did we get to Kauai?
Another “Fun Fact” (you will catch the pun later)