Under the Monkey Pod

I'll remember you
Long after this endless summer is gone
I'll be lonely, oh, so lonely
Living only to remember you. -- Elvis Presley 

View of sun rising amid clouds. Lucky to catch with iPhone camera. The orange globe disappeared before I had second sip of coffee. PHOTO:KCS

Down to final week on island, sun and trade winds have returned. Past three months have been Hawaii cold, dipping into chilly 60s. I bought long-sleeved T-shirt at Ross now worn to threads.

Totally unprepared, I also forgot to bring checkbook as well as bank debit card. Got speeding ticket. As my children will tell you, I am slowest driver on road.

Wrote letter to Kauai DMV explaining why I should not have ticket, doing 54 mph in 40 zone. Please dismiss. My reasoning being every driver in rearview mirror tailgates me for going too slow (aka, speed limit). So I go with flow and get tickie. $140 bucks.

Almost two months ago. The judge has not made decision on my plea. Should I send his-or-her Honor a flower lei? A box of macadamia nut chocolates? I wrote that my speeding was fluke and promise to do the usual, anger my fellow drivers by honoring speed limit, which is 50 mph tops on Kuhio Hwy 56, with numerous 35, 30, 25 and 10 mph zones. This confusing for kupuna (elder) with tailgaters biting his ass. I didn't use those exact words.

“Who pays attention to the speed limit?” said a friend.

I do. I don't want another ticket if it kills me.

Mysty and Viva horse around at sunset PHOTO:KCS

Surprise 70th birthday party for friend Maureen (wearing flowered leis) in Princeville with her son Ryan on left, me on right, friends Rich and Mike. We danced night away. Happy Birthday, Mors! Keep riding all those waves! CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Sometimes I ride Kauai bus, for transportation and local color. Twelve people got on board with me at Princeville bus stop recently. Eight of them young teenage girls heading home from school. Two were 50ish couple who had groceries. They put their bicycles on rack on front of bus. And two young men who spent a few minutes in nearby jungle preparing for ride. You tell me.

Buses run promptly on time. Because they speed.

I drop two quarters into glass box next to driver and find seat.

“One dollah.”

Again I hear, “One dollah.”

I walk to front feeling quaint sense of guilt. Must be talking to me. 

“It one dollah.”

“For kupuna?” I paid 50-cents last week. 

“One dollah.”

I reach into pocket, search for coins and manage to pull out a dime and quarter.”

“Dat enuff.”

Driver step on gas and we start rolling like runaway wagon.

I just get comfortable when I hear horn beeping. Driver is honking at car in front of us. Bus is tailgating slowpoke who is going speed limit. You tell me.

Koko rides Kapaa bike trail. PHOTO::KCS

Islanders love their flowers, with month of May being one celebration after another where locals wear  homemade leis and head wreaths (hakus) made with love: May Day, Lei Day, Mother's Day, Graduation Day and Memorial Day (aka Lei Day No 2).The grounds at our condo are full of fragrant flowering puakenikeni, gardenia and plumeria. Locals drop by daily to pick beautiful blooms.

It's like Easter egg hunt for grown-ups. Women hunting for flowers to make leis and men gathering flowers for their wahines to make leis.

We have enjoyed spending time with grandkids, Viva 13 and Mystiko, 5. We've attended Viva's soccer games and Mysty's May Day celebration at Kilauea School, portrayal of Royal Hawaiian ceremony with costumes, color, music, hula and more.  

Keiki of Kilauea School celebrate May Day PHOTO:KCS

Mysty plays opihi with kindergartners. From song, Opihi Man. PHOTO:KCS

Mama Isabel Bryna zips wetsuit on Mysty for surf session at Hanalei Bay.

PHOTO:KOKO

Koko stands in sea of flower petals. PHOTO:KCS

 

Weather has been harsh, with several flood advisories on island and one serious incident on south side. Some businesses near Nawiliwili Harbor went under water, but resilience of locals very impressive. Like nothing happened, just flood.

A natural inlet, Nawiliwili is main harbor on island where cargo in large containers is shipped in and out. Pride of America cruise ship docks here and tourists from around world in shorts and hats poke around port of call. 

"Our next port is Vancouver," said one cruiser who shipped out of San Diego two weeks ago.

Tug boats guide container ship into Nawiliwili Harbor. These ships carry everything from automobiles to kitchen sink. PHOTO:KCS

Harbor area is hub of Kauai where the island originally populated and grew into hodge podge of small plantations, major resort, auto repair shops, surf spot (Kalipaki), Lihue Airport, tourist traps, old Lihue town and surprises behind every grove of lehua, palm and monkey pod tree. Wear and tear of island is obvious, yet mysterious.

You learn you cannot judge quality by exterior. Best value and highest quality are often found in unlikely places. Underground exists for survival of islanders. Everyone knows that Walmart is least expensive store for widest variety of goods including groceries. Ace Hardware on Rice Street sells everything from septic tanks to sunglasses -- best inventory of art supplies on island. Most-for-your-money breakfast at nondescript Kauai Diner -- Japanese, Hawaiian and American food.

Winding down on couch, Viva shows Mysty cool stuff on laptop. PHOTO:KCS

Storm patterns are extremely changeable and potentially risky out here in Pacific. The Hawaiian chain is farthest from a continent. If you plan your day according to forecasts, always have plan B. Heed flood advisories and warnings. At 5,000-ft, Mt. Wai'ale'ale is one of wettest places on Earth. When it rains it pours.

And since there is only one road around island -- two-lane Kuhio Way 56 -- be ready for lane closures and unexpected delays. Go with flow.

Shaka (aloha greeting) to newcomers from the Mainland who have hunkered down here to stay, as well as local families who have been here for generations and have no desire to leave. If they can afford to stay. Tourism serves locals with jobs, and at same time, inflates economy. Housing for workers no longer affordable. Wealthy celebrities, tech leaders and music producers have purchased prime real estate for refuge. Haoles like us also drive costs up, buying modest real estate at high prices that continue to go up in value. Who can afford?

Witch-hat mountains above pristine Na Pali Coast. PHOTO:ROBRTO PULIDO

"A person seeking an island craves simplicity and glories in a world that is still incomplete, and therefore full of possibilities," according to Paul Theroux in his 1992 treatise, The Happy Isles of Oceana -- Paddling through the Pacific. The attraction of an island, he continues, "is not the landscape of the island, nor its location on the globe, but rather the fact of the place being surrounded by water -- the character of the water itself is the magic element, offering the islander transformation."

Theroux's wry, often pompous yet well researched 530-page book takes him from the Trobriand islands off Papua New Guinea to Easter Island -- from Melanesia to Polynesia -- with adventures in the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, the Marquesas and finally the Hawaiian chain. Here he finds the uniquely pristine Na Pali Coast with "witch-hat" mountain tops, waterfalls that plunge into often unnavigable seas of temperamental currents that have protected Kauai, the oldest of the chain, for 5-million years. 

                                                                     

I walk outdoors, open eyes, listen to tropical birdsong punctuated by clucking chickens, inhale scent of sweet gardenia, allow trade-wind breeze to wash over me. Feels like paradise.

Sun sets on island saying, until we meet again, aloha nui loa. PHOTO:KCS

End note:

Received June 1 from District Court of the Fifth Circuit, State of Hawaii, Lhu'e Division. Speeding infraction mitigated in defendant's favor. Maybe it was sea turtle that swam under my surboard last day on island -- brought good luck. Only on Kauai.

Adjusting My Religion

"The leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him." Lao Tzu, Ancient Chinese sage

Columnist David Brooks recently wrote a piece about why right-wing conservatives are gaining ground over traditional liberals. It's a world-wide phenomenon. 

The gist of his argument is that non-sectarian liberalism has individualized liberals, whereas the right-wing is held together based on belief in God and Country (err, the flag), a power greater than the individual.

He goes on:

Kindness and moral integrity don’t run as deeply as the power of a strong man and his God-fearing, flag-waving belief system, whether it's a fight to criminalize abortion, hold onto our loaded guns or keep nasty immigrants out of our country. The right has been victimized by woke, and so have you. Make America great again!

The left wing has turned their focus from Christian religion to education and intellectual politics as the answer, attempting to imbue basic morals into an imperfect system, an elitist attitude.

A mainstream conservative (not a Trumper), Brooks sees this as a warning as we hurtle toward another National Election pitting two old guys to lead our nation, one a decent but seemingly frail octogenarian and the other a grifter maestro of popular media, who will only accept winning, exhibits no spiritual underpinning other than his own self interest.

I was raised a Catholic, attended parochial schools grades 1 through 12. I was a believer. I had religion, due to deep philosophical reasoning at a very young age. I deemed it a privilege to be an altar boy and recite the Latin prayers. I didn't eat meat on Friday. I went to confession before receiving communion. As I got older, I changed.

The more I learned, especially through literature and history, I slowly let go of my early belief in God and Church. The institution seemed phony and usury and politically motivated. See stories re predatory Catholic priests. The idea of a supreme male authority in the sky and man-written Bibles with contradictory interpretations yet true believers, fall short of believable. 

I began to find religion in music, from protest songs to the poetry of Bob Dylan, from the mellifluous words of Crosby, Stills and Nash -- songs like Teach Your Children, Our House, For What It's Worth. The soulful musings of Van Morrison. The cries for peace by John Lennon. The questioning of Marvin Gaye, What’s Goin’ On?

I never had to fight for my country, as my father did in WWII. He saw conflict with Japanese fighter jets in the Pacific Theater while assigned to the battleship, USS Idaho. He fought so I wouldn't have to, nor my children. Today I watch courageous Ukrainians and marvel as they fight for their home land. 

Do I have that same gut feeling about my country? Perhaps I should. I hear many liberals say they will leave the U.S. if Trump wins the Presidency. Is this giving up? Where is the patriotism? What is a patriot? The right-wing has stolen its mantle.

We are talking about our United States of America, with liberty and justice for all. (Congress added “under God” to our flag salute in 1954, during a period of anti-communist McCarthyism.)  

I am guided by the very basic notion of right and wrong. Do the right thing. My veteran father, hardly a preacher and not a religious man, told me in a letter that he was guided by honesty and fairness. Is that enough, when those virtues are shunned as weakness by tyrants and their loyalists?

As music has changed, I have been drawn to the teachings of Zen Buddhism and involvement with yoga and tai chi, both based on Eastern concepts of physical and spiritual strength and nourishment. Zen Buddhism was founded as an antidote to human suffering. Philosopher, and self-described entertainer, Alan Watts called it “A religion without a religion.”

To a Zen Buddhist monk, the doings around us, what happened yesterday and will happen tomorrow, are not real. They are distractions that interfere with reality: that is, the present moment. That is our gift that incorporates past and future without forcing or doctrine. It can be a place of refuge.

I occasionally reach such moments through yoga, watching children play, riding a wave, looking into another's eyes, laughing or crying together. Then it's gone. Another will come. To know and feel this on a visceral level affirms life. Being in the moment is an art, a discipline of letting go. We inevitably change. Whether we evolve is up to you and me. This is my spiritual understanding.

Brooks may have a point that some liberals have forsaken the idea of a Supreme Being, but I don't believe they've given up on universal truths that hold us together beginning with a belief in human dignity. The nationalism of the far right, as we have witnessed in tragedies like the holocaust, is a dangerous gambit toward mob rule. Evident in chants like "lock her up!"

The so-called strong man reveals inner weakness. He fears his enemies. He mistrusts others. He will finally fail.  (Note Hush Money Trial of sleazy dealers all pointing fingers.) We shall overcome, one step at a time. Do the right thing, moment by moment. Do unto others... I don’t remember Jesus waving a flag. Beware of phonies.

Practice deep breathing. Speak with loving kindness.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Rev. Martin Luther King

Queen of the Short Story

Alice Munro

In a world of sound bites, headlines, tweets, fleeting impressions and big-bang events, sometimes a few written words appear that make you stop and wonder. For me, that was Alice Munro.

Renowned for her short stories -- she won a Nobel Prize in Literature -- Munro, 92, has  passed into another world beyond this one. Although to read her, you knew she'd been moving back and forth in time and space for many years.

Her obituary appeared in the NY Times today. 

I first discovered the Canadian writer through a short story she wrote for the New Yorker magazine. I was hooked by her prose and mesmerized by her story telling, even as her characters were primarily women and the settings were the humble prairie towns of southwestern Ontario near Lake Huron. She has been called the region's Chekhov. 

She mastered the lost art of the short story.  The critics described her work as "practically perfect."

In order to read short fiction, I need to be wowed from the get-go. These days most published short stories lose me immediately. No connection. They plod into personal introspection. Hello? Where's the story?

Munro's stories are often "baffling and paradoxical," unlike the woman who wrote them, according to those who knew her. She was a mother and wife and writer. Shy, she avoided celebrity. 

Such literary talent and effort devoted to the short story, Munro never penned a novel. "I don't really understand a novel," she said. "I don't understand where the excitement is supposed to come in a novel, and I do in a story. There's a kind of tension that if I'm getting a story right I can feel right away."

Munro has been called a woman's writer. At the end of her obituary, I began reading adoring comments mostly by women. Then, like magic, a stream of men's comments rolled in. Since I have enjoyed her so much, I wanted to hear what men had to say:

"One of the finest writers who ever lived, and a personal favorite. Her work is immortal."

"Over the years I've had students who have worshipped Munro's work. Mostly but not exclusively women... Her characters have a way of slipping into your thoughts and dreams... Her high art has a way of feeling artless, which is the highest compliment one writer can pay to another."

"A couple of years before she was laurated with the Nobel Prize, one of the young poets of my country wrote in his blog about Alice Munro. He added a link to The New Yorker from where I read an astonishing story "Dimensions". It was a delightful discovery and the beginning of a journey into her world of deep and subtle beauty. Because of her I also knew the writings of William Maxwell and wwnt back to Chekhov. I am grateful for her art and hope she rest in peace."

The Tear-Down Crew

Film actor Anthony Perkins

Chuy Vega's hair always looked greasy. It wasn't long, but it was stringy and wavy. His brown complexion was smoothed by a close razor shave and his flowery cologne hovered around him like burning incense.

His height reached about 5-ft 11-inches even with his rounded shoulders. He wore his collared shirt unbuttoned on top, a V-shaped patch of chest exposed. His most distinguishing feature was his tenor-pitched voice that could stretch a word for emphatic tone. There was no mistaking it. It made me flinch.

"WAKE UP, SLEEEEPING BEEYEW-TEE!”

He called me that because I tended to fall asleep in the backseat of his car, an early 50s 4-door Chrysler that occasionally would not start when we were about to drive to another job site. He would pump the gas pedal to get the car started, but if he pumped too many times the engine would flood and we'd have to sit and wait.

In those cases he swore like a drunken dock worker.

"I'm good."

"What time did you get home last night, Beauty?"

He knew that I visited my girlfriend, Linda, and stayed late. 

Two other guys, Sam and Ronnie, both high school students like me, made up the Tear-Down Crew. Chuy was an adult and our boss. 

"Oooooooh, look at those chunky legs!" he cackled one morning, spying a young woman in a short skirt walking across the bridge near the old Sears Building that towered on the east side of the L.A. River. "Yummm... chinga!"

We were heading east toward Roosevelt High School and Stevenson Junior High in East LA. Our mission was to find the typing classrooms -- where a manual typewriter sat on top of every desk like rows of mechanical soldiers. We carried screwdrivers that we used to take apart each machine, remove the carriage and platen, leaving a skeleton of a typewriter on each desk.

The following day the cleaning crew would arrive, set up an assembly line of tanks on the school lawn where the machines would be dunked and cleaned. The cleaning crew consisted of a dozen or so student workers like us.

We were employed by the Los Angeles City School District, the second largest school district in the U.S., behind New York. It was summer 1963. The District ran from San Fernando Valley through central Los Angeles all the way to San Pedro, Narbonne High School; from Pacific Palisades High School on the west side to East L.A.

Chuy loved East L.A. because that's where he had connections.

My father worked for the L.A. School District and was instrumental in getting me the job. I enjoyed meeting my fellow student workers from various areas of Los Angeles. My home was the city of Pomona, about 30 miles east of downtown L.A. and Central Maintenance on Santa Fe Avenue where we met every morning.

I've always been curious about what kids my age were doing, what schools they attended and what the cultures were like. Each work morning I would hang with a variety of kids -- Black, brown, white and Asian. We shared stories about our work days and our schools, talked sports and even surfing.

Ronnie, in our Tear-Down Crew, was a dancer, had been a child actor. He was a theater guy. All child actors in L.A. had to be accredited through the L.A. School District. Photos were taken with a bio of each young thespian/performing artist kept at the Administration Offices. I guess for legal purposes, child employment rules. His dark hair was always combed in a perfect pompadour and his smile accentuated by his straight white teeth.

"You look just like Tony Perkins," he told me.

Tony Perkins was the actor in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho. He played the nervous Norman Bates, who turns out to be the schizophrenic murderer.

"Really? Do you know Tony Perkins?"

"I've seen him on sets. You look just like him."

As a somewhat reserved guy, concerned about acne and other teenage maladies, I thought I might pay attention to my lookalike, a movie star.

Perkins played the lead in the 1957 movie The Jimmy Piersall Story about the mentally troubled professional baseball player. I just happened to own a Jimmy Piersall signature baseball glove.

Was there a theme here? Perhaps, but not what I expected.

Sam was the oldest student of the Tear-Down Crew. Ronnie and I both looked up to him as a good guy, sort of a counter-balance to Chuy. Sam always wore a clean collared shirt and his posture defined his personality: not tall but firm and straight.

This particular day we were working at Stevenson Junior High in the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. Ronnie pointed out graffiti on the wall out front and took it as a warning.

"There's trouble here," he said. Ronnie was Mexican-American, the predominant culture here. He understood the Spanish references.

Neither Chuy or Sam seemed nervous. The morning went as planned. We found the typing room and had torn down the machines before we broke for lunch. Chuy said he had business to take care of and would be back in about an hour.

We had sandwiches with us and we found a shady spot on the empty campus to eat and relax.

When Chuy returned he had a wide grin on his face as though he had won the Daily Double at San Anita. He was whistling a tune.

"Did you find any trouble?" he said. "Are you girls ready to go?" 

"We're fine, Chuy. No problems," said Sam.

Which was true. Ronnie's anxiety had dropped. Nothing happened. Just another day.

But not for Chuy, as Sam explained later.

"Chuy got laid," he said. "He has a whore named Rosie that he sees. I heard him talking about it to one of the guys back at the shop."

For some reason, I knew that. It was all so obvious. I wasn't surprised or bothered by it. Every once in a while the memory comes back. I fantasize that Chuy sets me up with Rosie and what that would have been like? How would she have treated me? Would I have gone through with it? I envision her lighting candles, being seductive and kind. 

As for Tony Perkins, I didn't realize that he was gay until he died of AIDs in 1992. Then it all made sense. 

Ronnie was gay, too.

 

Small Kine Sticky

Guy Hagi 

"I grew up on Oahu where I learned proper Pidgin."

These words, seen recently on social media, tickled me.

Some may consider "proper Pidgin" an oxymoron. Like saying, proper slang.

But guess what, the 2015 U.S. Census recognized Hawaii Creole English (Hawaiian Pidgin) as a language.

If you've spent any time around the Hawaiian islands you've heard locals speaking Pidgin. Its roots come from the plantation days of the 1830s. Its utility is undisputed. It enabled people from as far away  as Japan, Korea, Portugal, England and Spain, among others, to communicate. 

Children of the immigrants were particularly quick to learn and spread Pidgin throughout working class communities. Hawaiian Pidgin is referenced as English-based Creole.

Dat da case.

Pidgin rings with an economy of words and a nice flow that matches the mood of island life. When you hear it, you want to repeat it, use it. Some Pidgin, however, is too heavy to comprehend.

I studied Hawaiian music taught by Kalae "Bobo" Miles, a well-educated Hawaiian man who attended private Kamehameha boarding schools on Maui. You must claim Hawaiian ancestry to attend these schools. They take the Pidgin out of students.

When he introduced me to his father, Kalae told me that I would not understand a word of what he's saying. He was correct. His father's Pidgin was unlike anything I'd ever heard. It made no sense to me. There are different grades of Pidgin: heavy and light. 

Kalae taught traditional Hawaiian music, mele (songs) in traditional Hawaiian language, sung in verse, a form of song taught to the Hawaiians by the missionaries, one worthy contribution to Hawaiian culture. Although he did say that these traditional Hawaiian songs contain secret meanings. 

It doesn't take long to understand that the secret is obvious sexual content that the padres would have found unacceptable (hee hee). Or is it? Who's fooling who?

The Hawaiian music that became popular in the U.S. in the early 20th Century was hapa haole, meaning half English and half Hawaiian. Songs like Little Grass Shack and Lovely Hula Hands are hapa haole, not traditional Hawaiian. They mix English lyrics with Hawaiian words, many of which are multi-syllabic and fun to sing. Like, humuhumunukunukuapua'a, which describes a fish. 

When Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas) tumbled out of Bing Crosby's throat in mellifluous baritone, he was singing hapa haole.

Hapa haole songs are not Pidgin. Yet, the term itself has been called Pidgin. Hawaii Creole English has remained the language of the people, including elders like Kalae's father. An estimated 600,000 residents speak Pidgin natively, 400,000 as a second language, according to Wikipedia.

Foh evah, brah. 

Advertisers on local TV dip into Pidgin to add color and humor to reach their intended audience. TV news broadcasters have fun with it. Popular NBC surfer-anchor-meteorologist Guy Hagi speaks quickly and authoritatively, throwing out phrases like "bad-hair advisory” for windy and "sticky" for humid. He can speak even more precisely by using his Pidgin: 

“Small kine sticky.”