My first big trip was when I left Boston for Hawaii at the age of 20. When people asked me why I chose Hawaii, I said that my father offered to give me a dollar for every mile I got away from Boston. That was a joke, but not particularly funny now that I think of it. The real story was that at the time I was going to Boston University and not liking it very much. My passion those days was gymnastics and much of my life revolved around that. I had two part time jobs teaching gymnastics first at the Boston YMCU in the evenings (see the story on Jimmy Mckechran) and afternoons at the Brookline Jewish Community Center. The rest of the time I spent messing around with my fellow gym rats and chasing girls up from Boston to Maine.
It was during that time that I read James Michener’s “Hawaii.” The vast sweep of the story of the islands and the people who came to populate it (Chinese, Japanese, New Englanders, Polynesians) enchanted me. A year or so earlier, not satisfied with BU, I applied to West Point of all places. They had a gymnastics program and I liked the uniforms. Each senator from each state gets two nominations and each house of representative gets one. I got a nomination as “first alternate” from Michael Dukakis who was a congressman from Brookline at the time. I interviewed with him while he was moving his lawn in bare feet. As first alternate I would go if one of the first two candidates decided not to. As it turns out, I didn’t go. If I had, I would probably have been killed as it was the West Point Class of ‘66 that furnished first lieutenants for the Vietnam war. There’s a wonderfully moving book called “The Long Grey Line” that follows this class from their first year, through the war years and into the 90’s. Brilliant.
In any event, I wasn’t happy at BU. And I needed to get away from Boston. Browsing a catalogue of universities and colleges, I came across University of Hawaii. The tuition was $85 a semester. Bingo! I applied and actually got a small stipend. So my folks didn’t have to help me out. But life is always full of surprises. During the spring, I was joining my gym buddies for an evening workout at Wellesley High School. As soon as I stepped into the gym, I saw what I thought was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen doing a pirouette on the balance beam. I worked up the nerve to talk to her. And gave her a ride home. Her name was Joanne and we hit it off. Her parents hated me (a familiar refrain). So we fell in love as young people can do and became very close during the spring and summer until it was time for me to go off to Hawaii. I was tempted to stick around and give up the dream in order to be with Joanne, but I had a sense that my destiny was to travel and have an adventure in Hawaii.
So in late August of 1966, I said good bye to Joanne at Logan Airport, boarded a Pan Am flight to San Francisco where I spent a couple of days exploring the city. I even went for swim in the Bay thinking that it should be warm because it was California. Brrr. Two days later, I arrived at the Oahu airport and took a bus to Honolulu. I found a room one block from Waikiki for $4.50/night. It was about 7 pm and I put on my bathing suit and headed for the beach. The air was probably in the 70’s, the water was warm. There was the rich smell of plumeria in the air. I remember being in the water and seeing Diamond Head in the distance. I thought, “If I do nothing else in my life, at least I’ve done this!,” I had no I idea what the next couple of years would bring. I fully expected to spend a couple of years as a beach bum, beach comber and surfer. I didn’t expect this path would lead me to be interested in being a writer and scholar.
Despite being $4.50 per night I couldn’t afford to stay more than a couple of days in the hotel off Waikiki. At the University of Hawaii I met a couple of guys from Texas who were also looking for a place to stay. We found an advertisement for a house over the mountain in a town called Kailua. What a dump. Here’s Steve and Don taking a break from trying to clean the place.
Notice the motorcycles. We used to drive them over some beautiful but dangerous hilly passes to get to Honolulu from Kailua. The views were spectacular but the road could sometimes be slick. Here’s some shots (sorry about the quality) from those times.
It didn’t take us long to figure out that Kailua was not workable. That’s when we noticed an add for a live aboard boat in the Ala Wai yacht harbor. It was posted at U of H. The rent was to coast $20/month split 4 ways. We took it. It was a converted WWII salvage boat rigged for sailing. The boat was named Carla after the owner’s son’s girlfriend (who was a knockout and lived a couple of boats over). The boat could sleep five and had small stove, seats and table as well as a marine head. I chose to live in the rear cabin. Not luxurious but great.
We had many adventures while living aboard this boat including a tsunami warning which had us going out to sea briefly (safest place to be during a tsunami where the damage is done when the wave rushes inland and then recedes taking everything it’s path out to sea (including people). But if you are out far enough, the tsunami is barely distinguishable from other waves.
Here’s a picture of Don Anderson and me on Carla (the boat). The picture is from an article about us in the U of H news paper as an example of creative housing.
Carla (the boat) proved to be a good way to make friends with some of the local surfers who liked to leave there boards on the boat which was an easy paddle out to the Ala Moana surfing area. Here’s a picture of me and Godfrey Akaka on the boat before going surfing. Godfrey was one of the best-looking people I’ve ever met with a smile that could light up the room.
Here’s a picture of us playing around with our boards in the harbor. I picked up some kind of bug from the fouled water there and ended up in the university hospital for a couple of days of fever and nausea.
At the end of our pier was the Ariner — a beautiful classic yacht. I befriended the guy who was taking care of the boat. Her’s me on the boat.
And here’s me as a crew member messing around on the Ariner’s bow sprit.
