49th State Hawaii Record Company

There comes a time in every child's life when he realizes he knows more than his parents. Or thinks he does. It's a part of growing up.

Sometime after we moved to the new house just south of Nampa, which occurred in December 1964, we had a 45 rpm vinyl phonograph record, one of the small ones with a doughnut hole in the middle, that was put out by the 49th State Hawaii Record Company. I do not remember what song was on the record. All I remember was that it bothered me that the label claimed Hawaii was the 49th state, when I knew full well that Hawaii was really the 50th state.

My mother was certain that Hawaii was the 49th state, and she had proof in hand, and none of my teen-aged arguments to the contrary could convince her otherwise. Remember, this was in an era before the Internet, and it was not a simple task to amass proof that Alaska was really the 49th state (admitted to the Union on January 3, 1959) and Hawaii the 50th (admitted on August 21, 1959). The encyclopedia we had was no help; its entries on Alaska and Hawaii still referred to them as territories. The public library was no help; its holdings contained nothing so recent as a current event.

Nothing I could come up with would carry the point. My mother was firm in her belief that Hawaii was the 49th state. Neither of us budged, and our friendly impasse finally faded away, neither of us convincing the other, neither of us conceding defeat.