Wildfires, Happy Trails and Akua

Puamana, ku'u home i Lahaina

Me na pua ala onaona

Ku'u home i aloha ia  -- song by Auntie Irmgard Ahuli, 1937

Left to right, Tony Lombardi, Kevin Samson and Dave Fredericks. February 2023.

I'm not sure

where I first heard that Maui was on fire. 

I was not surprised since fires on the island are common, and drought has been an issue there for years. Then I saw a photo on Facebook showing burnt out cars along Front Street, the main road in picturesque Lahaina. That's not real, I said. That photo is from somewhere else, another bit of misinformation on social media.

Now we know the photo was real, an apocalyptic view of an island paradise.

It's been the lead story of every news source in the country -- more than 100 deaths and hundreds more missing --  tragedies of people caught in the firestorm and resulting hardships of survivors. The scenes and stories are shocking and heartbreaking.

Only the day before this perfect-storm scenario of hurricane-generated winds and wildfire, I received news that my best friend on Kauai (not Maui), Rick Carroll, had passed. He was 80, his health had been failing and the news did not shock me, yet there was a finality. He won't be there when we return, as we do every year.

Rick Carroll, writer, bon vivant, storyteller, photographer, jazz head, Porsche enthusiast, humanitarian, father, grandfather and friend to all he met.

Rick's obituary appeared on Facebook -- it seemed that breaking news comes first on FB. Barbara is not on FB so it falls to me to tell her the latest.

I do not always relish the role of town crier.

"Oh no," I said, an immediate reaction to what I had just read.

"What is it?" Barbara asked with alarm.

"Rick passed away." 

Her eyes welled with tears. "Oh no."

We talked about him and his surviving spouse Marcie, also a close friend. I read his obituary out loud, written by Marcie, who knew him best. We had a guest, Stephanie, staying with us who also listened. Conversation ensued about our friends and how much we would miss Rick's engaging chuckle and smile that would draw a reciprocating grin from all who knew him. One of his friends nailed it when he said,  "The world won't be the same without Rick."

The next thing we knew Maui was burning, becoming the worst wildfire disaster in island history. At least Rick didn't have to hear about it. He would have immediately felt the pain of the people, their loss, and made some kind of insightful gesture --  shared a poignant story. He was a prolific writer during his day as reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser, the island's major daily newspaper. He authored a series of books about Pacific islands and the spirit ancestors, or ghosts, of Hawaiian legend known as akua.

He was duly proud of his detailed book about Israel Kamakawiwo 'ole, entitled Voice of the People. We've all heard IZ's song accompanied by a simple ukulele, a medley rendition of Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, which has been played at numerous memorials across the land. But we didn't know the significance of IZ's role in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement begun in the Seventies, built around resurrecting traditional Hawaiian music and language. Rick earned the trust of Israel's family to tell their story.

Bruddah IZ  passed in 1997 at age 39. I'm sure he and Rick are talking story and laughing together, two cultural traits of Hawaii's people, and lamenting the loss of Lahaina, once the home, ku'u home, of the Hawaiian monarchy. 

A few days later

as Lahaina lay in ash in the middle of the Pacific and tore at our heart strings, we were hit from another direction when we got news on FB that our good friend Dave Fredericks had passed. Dave was practically a part of our family. During the year before he relocated to Whitefish, Montana, he parked his rig in front of our house on weekends and crashed in our second bedroom. 

He always brought provisions to cook dinner for us. He was a master griller, a popular high school English and wood-shop teacher, talented builder, experienced fly fisherman and most of all a loving husband, father and grandfather.

Dave was married to a high school friend of mine, Kim. Dave, like Rick, brought a joyful spirit into our lives. He had already moved Kim into the artful craftsman house he had refurbished in downtown Whitefish where he joined her to spend summers with their grandchildren.

One cannot express the depth of the loss of Grandpa.

The summer following my retirement, I jumped into my Toyota Prius and drove to Whitefish, following up on Dave's invitation. Driving a Prius hybrid to Montana is akin to riding a lamb into a rodeo. Out at Flathead Lake where Dave had refurbished a cabin and built a separate bunkhouse, my puny white Prius parked next to his corral, Dave said, "You know what they call a car like that up here... a tampon."

We played horseshoes and counted the thousands of stars beneath the big sky at night while passing a bottle of single malt whiskey around the campfire among friends, family and neighbors.

Dave parked me in the shotgun seat of his Ford 250 diesel and we drove east to where the Rocky Mountains begin to rise like ascending spirits. We followed a narrow road on the ledge of the mountain to the top of the Continental Divide. We hiked to the end of the trail, talked story with a ranger and a few wanderers.

His constant grin beneath a wide brimmed cowboy hat, unruly eyebrows curled like bullhorns, Dave developed a visual persona that was hard to miss. He was a rugged man of the Western frontier with a heart of soft gold. A natural teacher, among his many lessons for his grandchildren was how to play a smart hand of Texas Hold'em poker.

A few of Dave's postcards

Dave kept in touch with friends by postcards he created from covers of pulp fiction novels, albums, religious guidebooks, whatever he could find that had a cultural connection to you. Receiving a postcard from Dave, with his scribbled notes, was like a getting a gift from an adventuring uncle.

Maybe Dave and Rick will meet up on the verdant meadows and sandy beaches of heaven. Dave passed away surrounded by his devoted wife, loving family and grandparents. A case of rare mucosal myeloma got him. 

Rick passed in a hospital bed in Lihue, according to his beloved Marcie. An attending nurse reported that when she peaked into the room just before Rick left us, he gave his toothy smile, lifted his hand and waved a shaka, the Hawaiian signal that says, hang loose, it's all good.

Rick's obit requested that friends and loved ones make donations in his name to the Hawaii Community Foundation; Maui Strong Fund to help support those affected by the Maui wildfires. Mahalo! 

I've felt on the verge of tears, awakening in the middle of the night from this nightmare of loss. I've had to reach for the strength of my two lost buddies for hope and inspiration. I pray for the people of Maui.

Ha ina ia mai ka puana

Ku'u home i Lahaina

I piha me ka hau 'oli

The story has been told

My home in Lahaina

Filled with happiness

Dave Fredericks at Logan Pass, Glacier Park, Aug. 2016. One of the few times I caught him without his cowboy hat.

One Pilgrim's Progress

Who would true valour see,

Let him come hither;

One here will constant be

Come wind, come weather.

There's no discouragement

Shall make him once relent

His first avowed intent

To be a pilgrim.

--John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

Maybe it's time for a modern-day American road-trip story. Not a romantic saga of a young man or woman searching for meaning in life through fast-driving adventure, rather a story about an older person, a populist in the most real sense, an unassuming character who has experienced a pedestrian yet full life, on a mission to save an old friend, literally, by putting one foot in front of the other.

This is the basis of the novel by British writer Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry published in 2012. It's her first novel, which has been made into a feature film currently showing in the U.K.

How eccentrically boring, you might say. A perfectly slow-paced story from stuffy old England. The protagonist is an elderly milquetoast and timid as a lamb. Where's the thrill? The edge? No plane crashes, guns or explosions?

Spoiler alert: I can't recall catching myself laughing so much as I did at the conclusion of this story. 

Retired in his mid-sixties, Harold Fry receives a letter from a former fellow employee, a woman, Queenie Hennessy, who expresses her gratefulness for having known Harold from working together years ago. She currently is dying from cancer.

Based on a subsequent chance meeting with a young woman full of positive affirmations -- "If you have faith you can do anything" -- Harold decides on the spot to begin walking to see Queenie to save her from dying of cancer. "As long as I walk, [Queenie] must live," he says.

No matter that Queenie lies in bed on the other side of  the country. No matter that Harold has only the vaguest idea of how to get there. No matter that he has no supplies, not even a cell phone, and will be walking in yachting shoes. He henceforth begins his pilgrimage. He locates a phone to tell his wife of many years Maureen that he is walking to Burwick-upon-Tweed. Tootles.

Underway on foot, Harold's mind drifts from present to past to future, with doubts, recriminations, sorrows, hopes, elations and more. He resolves to embrace the virtue of kindness. There is a son involved. A dissolving marriage. There is Queenie and their special relationship. And the inescapable hardships and surprises of the road and its characters.

Many are drawn to Harold, for deserving and selfish reasons. At one point he becomes a media sensation with a gaggle of followers. Think Forrest Gump. His fame, however, is ephemeral, while Harold trudges on to meet his destiny and his beloved Queenie. 

My wife Barbara found the book on a used book shelf at the Kilauea Bakery on the island of Kauai. While reading it she would occasionally chuckle. "You might like this story," she said. "It's right up your alley." The book cover, adorned with a flowery font, did not appeal to me. I had picked up Open Season, the original Joe Pickett story by CJ Box, on the free shelf at the Princeville Library for the plane ride home.

Back in Santa Cruz, I dove into Harold Fry's pilgrimage. My journey, from page to page, simulated Harold's step-by-step odyessy. I discovered Joyce's novel much more enjoyable, with unexpected turns and rewarding lessons of life. Box's story was formulaic with a predictable ending. Many novels today are written by contract. The publisher wants 400 pages. The writer is to maintain the formula that readers expect. Sometimes I feel as though such novels are all filler, no meat.

Joyce says she started writing the Harold Fry story when her own father was dying from cancer. "He was very frightened and so was I," she says in the back of the book. "I was appalled at the idea of not having my father. I was appalled at the idea of watching him die. But both happened, and while they did I wrote this story about a man who sets off to save someone else. It was my escape. My way of making sense. And somehow also my way of finding the flip side to my complicated, wild grief."

Again, I finished The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry laughing. 

320 pages.