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Corps volunteers for Micronesia. Soane got a job there, too. So we said goodbye to his family and flew away.
The lobby floor. passing just to the east of Tonga, is what suggested a name for this new hotel back in 1964. A map of the island is inlaid in the lobby floor; I liked to imagine that one side of the room was in “tomorrow.” Another reason I liked the Dateline Hotel was that they sometimes had a Tongan band playing live music in the bar. My stay in Tonga came to an end when I was called back to work in the North Pacific, training more Peace
Link Six: Soane to Brian Later, Soane came to the States to visit friends in San Mateo, CA, where many Tongans now live and work. After some months, he decided to visit my parents in San Diego, whom he had never met. I was told they welcomed him as a third son. When my brother Brian finished some adventures of his own, down in Norfolk Harbor, he went back to San Diego for the first time in a few years. When he showed up at my parents’ apartment, Brian was surprised to find a Tongan man had taken his place. All quickly became good friends. Brian and Soane soon got jobs (sandblasting road equipment) to earn money for airfare. They wanted to go to Tonga, where my work had taken me for the second time. That was all in the 1970s, you understand, when we were all young and footloose.
The Dateline Hotel 152