Old Kauai, New Kauai

The Jetty was once the center of nightlife on Kauai

We were so young but we didn't know it.

I had no idea that a trip to Kauai would foretell my future. I had no interest in Hawaii beyond Connie Stevens, the comely blonde nightclub singer in the popular television series Hawaiian Eye. The year was 1968.

"They call it the Garden Isle," said the travel agent who arranged our honeymoon, her face made up, red lipstick, deep tan wrinkles from over-exposure to sun, or perhaps too many cigarettes. The raspy voice was a giveaway. "You have to see the Hanalei Plantation. You will love it.”

She wore a plumeria in her hair that released the fragrance of a tropical Shangrila.

We were barely old enough to vote or purchase a Mai Tai, whatever that was. We were the innocent, good-looking, wide-eyed married couple who appeared in glossy magazine photos. 

But we didn't know it.

Hanalei (2019)

Our trip was a wedding gift from her mother, my new mother-in-law, following a large wedding at Our Lady of Assumption Catholic church in the little town of Claremont, where we had rented an apartment to live when we returned from the islands.

The oldest of the Hawaiian chain, Kauai had not yet been fully discovered by the tourist crowd. They went to Waikiki. In the Seventies, the surfers and hippies invaded Maui.

We were booked into the only visible hotel in Poipu a few short miles from Lihue, the county seat. Our accommodations were a two-story building that resembled Travel Lodge motels that could be found on any highway in the U.S. Our lodging sat on hardened lava, not near a beach. It was so quiet we could hear the silent cockroaches at night.

As, seemingly, the only human occupants of said hotel, we relied solely on love and romance, along with the music of song birds and gently swaying palms with clumps of coconuts; wafting cool breezes subsumed the indulgent humidity.

"I want to find a fresh pineapple," my new bride said to me.

When we ventured out the first morning, in our rental car, I was startled to see dead frogs, the size of papayas, splattered on the few roads amid the island's lush greenery. The sight sickened me: squashed, long-legged frogs on hard asphalt.

We never saw a chicken, modern Kauai's signature fowl-feathered friend. As the story is told, the chickens were released from their cages with Hurricane Iniki in 1992, the most devastating natural disaster to hit the island in modern times. Homes were flattened and swept away. Chickens fluttered and propagated with a feral variety introduced earlier from Southeast Asia. 

The island survived disaster as it had for 5 million years.

I bodysurfed the excellent waves at Brennecke’s, pure and glassy cover-ups, the best and most memorable ever. The locals climbed to the tops of palm trees and tossed down coconuts that they punctured with knives and drank from. Civilization at Brennecke's consisted of a tiny market the size of a small garage, across the road.

“With your dark hair and skin,” she told me, having watched from the beach, "you blended in." 

I felt empowered, observed and complimented. I told her that I admired the way she peeled tropical bananas with her long, beautiful fingers.

Drive, She Said

We headed north in our rental car. She read from a visitor's guide about menehunes -- the little people who once lived here. There had been sightings. Her enthusiasm was infectious. Did she really believe?

We veered from Kuhio Highway toward the beach at the Hawaiian settlement of Anahola where according to our guide book, in 1946 the community had been destroyed by a great tsunami. The tires of our rental dug into the sandy beach and spun like a fan. We were stuck.

I searched near a beach shack for a board or tree branch to leverage beneath the rear wheels to move the car. Following several unsuccessful attempts, a young man -- brown-skinned and shirtless, empty expression -- emerged from the shack.

"Get in da cah, staht da engine and give it gas."

I followed his directions while he bounced on the back bumper. The tires grabbed the sand, pushing the rental forward. He disappeared back into the shack. That was that.

I felt like the most clueless haole tourist on the island. At that moment, I was. I had signaled to the young kane in his beach home that we -- malihinis -- were coming. We were a sighting of the island's future.

We continued northward seeking the Hanalei Plantation. At an overlook, we saw rows of taro growing in shallow water. The sultry atmosphere steamed upward from below filling our nostrils with redolent organic fumes.

"This must be the plantation," we agreed. The backdrop of tapering, rich green volcanic mountains, creased with white waterfalls confirmed our expectations. Yet we were never sure.

We passed through the small village consisting of a few old, wooden Western-front stores and a long-porched school building, not realizing that this would be the heart of the oncoming invasion many years later: Hanalei, as in Puff the Magic Dragon, a folk tale converted to song by Peter, Paul and Mary.

We stopped at a beach on Hanalei Bay and watched crabs the size of our hands appear from under the sand and scramble in all directions. This was not Newport Beach.

We parked where the road ended and discovered a cove called Ke'e. We swam in the turquoise-clear water, the two of us alone beneath cerulean skies and puffy white clouds.

"We've found paradise," she said.

Swimming pool at the Kauai Marriott at the harbor

One evening we turned our sights toward night life.  We ventured to the Surf hotel, the tallest building in Lihue on the hill above the Nawiliwili Harbor, Kauai's port of call. "Surf,"proclaimed the sign on top that glowed in blue, lighted letters. Opened in 1960, the Surf was the first hotel at Kalapaki, the name of the harbor beach.

The location is noteworthy in Kauai's history. In 1891, 2,000 islanders, likely the entire population, welcomed Queen Lili' uokolani with lighted torches blazing along the harbor mouth announcing her royal tour of Kauai. William Hyde Rice and his wife arranged a grand luau in honor of the Queen held on his Lihue Ranch property that he had purchased, in conjunction with other adjacent properties, for $27,500 from Princess Ruth Keelikolani. 

The tidal wave of 1946 destroyed Rice's beach home at Kalapaki.

In 1987 the Westin Kauai replaced the Surf. Eight years later, the grand Kauai Marriott with sumptuous architectural gardens and artful stonework took over the site and continues to operate today. It is the site of the Kauai Writers Conference held annually in November, considered one of the top meetings of writers and publishers in the world.

Where the Locals Go

That night we rode the elevator to the top of the Surf where we discovered a cocktail lounge with windows, although it was too dark to enjoy the view.

We were the young, starry-eyed honeymoon couple sitting at the table in the middle of the room. We attracted two women tourists in too-tight clothing who joined us at our table. We also lured a slight, dark-complected man outfitted in a blue and white aloha shirt.

"I'm Sonny," he introduced himself. "I drive taxi. I can take you anywhere." 

The two women, Irene and Betty, were older and gussied up as if for a luau at the Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki. We drank tropical libations, talked story and giggled. 

Well into our cups, Sonny announced:

"Do you want to go where the locals go? I will take you."

We piled into his cab and sped down the hill to a waterfront roadhouse called "The Jetty." A sudden breeze arose, sending the stiff aroma of the ruffled sea our way.

We heard music blasting from inside. The room vibrated boisterously. An attractive, young dark-haired woman danced on a stage, or was it a table, for all to see, her arms flailed. She lifted the front of her skirt flashing her panties that featured the image of a target, a bull's eye, between her legs.

The crowd roared. Sonny guided us to seats. We drank beer. The band played. The locals yelled their approval.

Eventually surfeited with raucous local foolery, we allowed Sonny to drive us back to the hotel.

There, beneath the stars, we said our good-byes. My bride and I looked into each other's eyes and smiled when Sonny leaned into Irene and kissed her goodnight. 

A phosphorescent white tide-line crept in, as quiet and subtle as a sensuous hula.

Sleepy Kauai was already on the map as a film location. Movies South Pacific, Donovan's Reef and Blue Hawaii with Elvis Presley had been filmed on the island. The Fern Grotto on the Wailua River was a popular wedding location for celebrities.

We were so young and we didn't care.  

Forty years later I returned to Kauai. Half a lifetime had passed. I had a new bride. I searched for Brennecke's, but it had dramatically changed. Hurricane Iniki had literally blown it apart. It was unidentifiable. The little store was gone. Poipu had been settled with houses and condos and hotels. Even the frogs had mostly disappeared.

When I asked about the Jetty, I received blank looks. Only a few old-timers remembered. 

An online search revealed that Club Jetty was opened in 1946 by Mama Emma Ouye. She booked live entertainment from the Mainland, including Las Vegas. Visitors included actor John Wayne. According to one account, President Ronald Reagan gave Mama Ouye the White House Hot Line number to use in case of an emergency. That emergency occurred in 1992 when Iniki destroyed the Jetty.

Mama Ouye's motto: "If you help people with their life they will help you with yours."

Besides damages wrought by hurricanes and tsunamis, the general landscape of the Garden Island remains unmistakably the same, the ancient volcanic mountains and palis, the rainbows and waterfalls, the ever-encroaching jungly flora. At the end of a short road on the eastern point of Hanalei Bay, beyond a gate, along a trail that leads down to a shady beach, you will find the ruins of a hotel, the Club Med Resort built in the 1970s. Before that it was the site of the Hanalei Plantation Resort, the place we never found whose life was less than a decade long.

Our youngest daughter lives on the Garden Island, with two children, one born here, who call us grandparents, Coco and Lolo.

They are so young and they don't know it.