Remember When...
(your personal Hawaiian
memories)
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From Leslie... I am new to your website and it feels so good to see the local goodies, fabrics and stories. I found you inadvertantly by going to Sounds of Hawaii at Great America on the 8th. After being there I had this overwhelming feeling of missing all things Hawaiian, especially the people. Just listening to them talk brought me pure joy! My sister and I had gone to the Aloha Festival in Hermosa Beach just the month before and the people, flowers (someone had made and was selling plumeria leis) and food just made me homesick for a land that is not native to me but is so ingrained in my heart and soul it hurts sometimes. After going to Sounds of Hawaii I searched the Web for anything Hawaiian around me. Through a link I spotted your site and marked it as a favorite. Searching others and getting my fix was kind of the end of it for a few days. Anyhow the purpose of my email is to tell you I just read the stories on your website and they were wonderful. I am from the bay area, born in Oakland, raised in Alameda and now in Hayward. My first trip to the Islands was Thanksgiving 1978. My mother, father, sister and I spent what was to be a week between Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. You know the tourists, they have to see it all cause they'll probably never go back. By my third day I was in love with all that Hawaii is. I did my trip with the family and from Hilo called my boss and asked for another week off. I put them on the plane and stayed another week in Waikiki by myself . Had I known then what I know now Waikiki would have been the last place I stayed. Anyhow, to make a long story a bit shorter I moved over in June of 79. I made arrangements to stay at the YWCA on Wilder and Punahou until I could find a job and place to live. The job came within a few days and I ended up living next door to the Y at Punahou Gardens. I remember thinking on the plane over there I really wanted a view if at all possible. My irish luck was with me cause I got a 12th floor studio with nothing between me and Diamond Head but air. Many days I sat at my table writing letters to my friends and family describing the rainbows in front of me and the clouds that always seemed to loom over the Makiki area mountains. Honolulu City Lights was a new song and I heard it repeatedly as I looked out at exactly that in the evenings. I was in heaven. I don't know that I have ever been happier living in a place. The flowers, the food, the people were all there just for me it seemed. I remember trying to make sticky rice out of MJB cause I didn't know any better. A local guy taught me the trick and I've never bought boxed rice again. I lived there for just a year because my family and long time friends were here in the Bay Area. I was working in a local bar and knew I didn't want to do it forever but I was spoiled working nights and having the days to adventure off and explore my new homeland. It felt like the right time to go when I returned. Twenty plus years later I still have the love for it. I go back as often as I can, usually once a year or year and a half. I stay on the windward side now in B and B's. Sometimes Lanikai or last time in Kaneohe. I have found some incredible deals-- one time, not too long ago, $45 dollars with the Mokulua Islands straight out my window and Kailua Beach a few yards away. Staying in the homes and cottages of the locals is just the best. My time over there now includes a side trip to Kailua-Kona as my Godmother is living her final years in the most loving care center near where her daughter lives. "Cookie" settled in Kamuela 25 or 30 years ago and never looked back. She moved to Waikoloa some years ago and her mom joined her when she could no longer care for herself. I look at this email and I think, why am I telling these strangers my story? It made me feel good to read your diaries of returning home. It made me miss Hawaii a little bit more and when I started typing I couldn't stop. I am determined to nourish my love of the island people and ways even if it means just browsing web sites and living vicariously through them. Reading your stories and "listening" to you talk, when the pidgin came out, made me feel like I was at my other home. I could smell the pikake you described, feel the warm winds and almost taste my plate lunch from Giovannis Shrimp truck up in Kahuku. Please forgive me if I don't spell everything right. All those vowels have a tendency to get lost but you know the spot I'm talking about. I have told so many people that my most expensive meal over there is often eaten at a picnic table in a dirt parking lot on the side of the road, drinking local beer out of my own cooler. The rest of my meals are at L and L's or places like it. During this emotional, tragic time we need to replenish the good in our hearts and that is what I have done for the last couple of hours through your web site. All the sadness I have been feeling the last week was gone for a little while today. I look forward to meeting you folks one day. Leslie >> Aloha e Leslie, I'm
so happy that you were able to connect to my stories. I don't
get alot of feedback because most people are understandably so
busy. When I wrote them, I was missing home so much that I hurt
inside. Seemed the only thing I could do was put it down in words
and share that feeling with others, a feeling of physical aching
for a place that has embraced us and will not let us go. When
I go home I have 2 mom's. One mom hugs me at the airport my other
mom wraps me up in her warm breezes and glorious mountain rains
and reminds me to never forget where I'm from and to make sure
I come back someday. Well, I've never forgotten and in fact will
take my wife and my 2 year old son back home for good...next
March. One journey is about to end..and another about to begin
as I will move home to the land where I was born as a different
person. One who will cherish every drop of rain...and every moment
of life.
It was nice talking to you yesterday. All this talk has dredged up a lot of feelings and I find myself reminiscing about my time living and working over there and thought I would share what I thought was a funny thing. I started working within a few days of arriving in Honolulu. I was doing office work at Aloha Clutch and Brake during the day and wishing I was out playing instead. One of the guys I worked with lived near me and when he gave me a ride home one day he told me about this bar that he thought I could be hired at If I wanted to work nights or make some extra money. It was within walking distance of home so I thought I'd check it out. Sure enough they hired me and I started that night. It was a Wednesday, funny how you remember such things. It was across from the bowling alley, near the police station at the end of Kalakaua near Beretania. It was mainly local customers but there were a couple of Japanese waitresses who got a lot of customers from Japan because of their tour and taxi driver boyfriends. These women and especially the kitchen lady had trouble with my name. She would call out the girls names when our pupu orders were ready. They were trying to think of a name they could use for me and I told them I had a nickname- Red, because of my hair. Well Red wasn't any easier so they translated that into Aka, which is Red in Japanese. I tell you, when the kitchen lady screamed and I do mean screamed "AKA" to let me know an order was ready, every head turned especially the ones from Japan. They of course had no idea why some one would scream a color out. When they saw me, someone who looked very different from everyone else in the building- tall and red headed they laughed and laughed. That job was an experience I'll never forget! I quit my day job and became a cocktail waitress in a bar like none at home. I'm sure you are very aware of some of the "clubs" in Hawaii and I was very lucky to work in a fun family style place. People would bring their children after they bowled and I made some incredible friends. A girl of 18 that worked there, took me- then 27, under her wing and included me in all her big hawaiian family functions. I spent many holidays with them and attended weddings of her sisters. For the first time in my life I ate spam and vienna sausage with rice, tried and liked dry cuttleffish. I still buy arare and usually put it as a stocking stuffer for my family who had it when they came to visit me. Well, there I go again, down memory lane. Thank you for opening these doors where I can relive some of the happiest moments in my life. My sister and I talk about moving over some day so we can live our lives in a place that brings such joy. I'm about ready to start packing! Aloha, Leslie |
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Aloha Myles, I enjoyed reading your stories. Like Leslie, I was searching the web for anything Hawaiian because tonight I had the thrill of meeting Jerry Santos from Olomana at a concert here in Oregon. And, like Leslie, my husband and I moved to Hawaii from the mainland - my husband in 1976 and I in 1977. We met on my second day there. We married a few months later. By the time we moved back to the mainland (Oregon) in 1983 we had three children - all very close in age. I never wanted to leave the islands, but my children were growing up without knowing their cousins, aunties, uncles, and grandparents. It became too expensive to fly 5 people back and forth for visits. We left our beautiful home in Hawaii for rainy Oregon after 6-7 years in the islands. I have the ache of "homesickness" for Hawaii almost every day. I was never happier in my life than when I lived in the islands. The call of Hawaii on one's heart is something that can't adequately be explained with mere words. Hawaii has a magic and enchantment like no other place I've known. A song like "Ku'u Home O Kahaluu" or "Honolulu City Lights" can reduce me to tears as I think of the "home" of my heart - Hawaii. We will have been married for 25 years next month, and we are returning at that time to Hawaii to take a "sentimental journey" to places that hold a special place in our hearts. Lahaina (where we met), Poipu Beach (where he proposed marriage), Waimea Falls Park (where we had our marriage ceremony), Pacific Palisades (where we lived and raised our babies in the early years), Magic Island (where we took our babies to play in the water) and the University of Hawaii (Manoa) where one of our daughters is living in a dormitory as she attends college. Even our daughter feels the islands calling her back to her birthplace. I appreciate your stories and can identify with your seniments, even if I'm not a local girl. Mahalo. Patricia |
Please send me your Hawaiian stories and photos,
so I can share them with our other readers.
info@dahawaiistore.commailto:info@dahawaiistore.com
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