Posted 3:08 PM by Alfred

10 more things you MIGHT not have known about living Hawaii

Peep the sidebar links if you wanna chiggedy check out items 1-40. There’s a special little section. aight? Aight.

Okey dokey, here goes.

41. When a parent introduces a little kid to another adult friend of theirs, the kid immediately starts calling them “uncle” or “auntie”. The adults refer to it as well, like “go tell uncle Alfred that Junior-Boy needs more charcoal for the barbeque.” So then from then on you are an unofficial uncle/auntie. There’s not like any responsibility with this job, and after a while you don’t even notice it, but it used to amuse me when I would show up at this guy’s house for beers/football games back when I first moved out here, and his kid would come running down the driveway “Uncle Alfred, Uncle Alfred! Check it out, I got a new bike” or some whatever like that. Anyway, so yeah. This kinda ties in with #30 (hanai children) in that the community becomes like an extended family to some extent.

42. Kickin’ it in the carport. As you walk up and down local suburbs, you will see all kinds of activity going on in the carports. Since houses and their associated lots are usually pretty small compared to houses on the mainland (hey, we live on a frikken island) people tend to use their carport for just about anything besides keeping a damn car in it. people set up sports viewing areas, watching tv, talking story, playing games, just sitting on a couch watching the day go by. It also ties into the idea that you wanna be outside cuz the weather’s so nice. You especially see this in houses that don’t have a big lanai (balcony).

43. no helmet law for us motorcycle riders. Not that that makes a difference to me. I always wear my helmet. Yes I do. I am a responsible citizen and value my own life. (Hi Mom & Mrs. P)

44. Our latest interstate highway, the H-3 (pictured), is supposedly the most expensive road per square mile in the United States. It runs from Kaneohe Marine Base, on the east side of the island, along a series of massive support structures up to a high point on the cliff sides of the Koolau mountains, through a tunnel going straight through the mountain, out the other side, down the valley and into Aiea and Pearl Harbor. There was mad controversy from the Hawaiians over the fact that the highway was displacing their sacred heiiaus (see #46, below) as well as budgetary and planning delays, but it opened its gates in 98, if I remember correctly. Also, you may be wondering why the hell Hawaii has interstate Highways, well the answer is they all connect military bases to each other, which offers justification for uncle sam to open his pockets. More on the US military’s presence here is below in #48.

45. the “ice” (crystal meth) epidemic. Hawaii is said to have the highest per capita amount of people strung out on the smokeable, rock, version of crystal methanphetamine, known as “ice”. It is literally tearing apart a lot of families and much of the community. The family services departments are swamped with cases of homes that are in complete shambles, smelling of rotting food, little kids with wet diapers running around, while Mom & Dad smoke up, not a care in the world. They recently ran a state-sponsored television special that pre-empted all the basic tv channels for one hour last week, so the problem is getting a lot of attention, but sadly, it’s an issue with obviously no clear cut solution.

46. Heiaus. I’m probably spelling this wrong. These are ancient Hawaiian burial grounds, and the joke is you can’t walk three feet on the island without bumping into one. So anytime anyone wants to construct anything, they gotta be super careful of any possible remains they might find. This always becomes an issue when new roads are being built, as well as any other major project. They’ve been talking for years, for example, about putting up a new super-Wal-Mart in town, and construction started, to lay the foundation, but they keep finding more and more bones, which stops everything, cuz they gotta bring in a cultural expert, the whole nine yards. I can see that it’s hard for the Hawaiians, because they see these white/asian/portugues/whatever people digging up their ancestors, so a lot of care has to be put into it when this happens, whole heiiaus have been moved, sometimes burial ceremonies conducted again, for people that no one has any idea of who they were.

47. the ukulele is by far the most popular local musical instrument. and they don’t pronounce it like on the mainland, “you-cul-ay-lee”, it’s pronounced “oo-koo-lay-lay”, not to get all Kelsey Grammer on you. It’s not uncommon at all to see kids wandering around carrying one with them, just jamming out tunes as they cruise around, playing on the bus, in parks, in Waikiki, wherever. And I gotta say, it’s pretty amazing what some of these folks can bust out on that little thing with just 4 strings. Prolly the most famous local ukulele player is an Asian guy named Jake Shimabakuro (pictured), who used to play with a group called Pure Heart. Supposedly he’s getting like superstar status in japan right now. Anyway, he can play that thing SO fast it’s unbelievable.

48. There is a gigantic US military presence here. Which makes sense when you think about it, I mean, we are a highly strategic location, almost halfway across the Pacific to Asia. All four branches are highly represented, which makes for a high population of service people on the island. You see a lot of military around, but it’s an interesting subculture, in that they build these bases which are almost totally insular, in that they have their own schools, own stores (which have cheap ass prices), own clubs, own hospitals, the whole nine yards, so their isn’t a giant need for the service people to go out and mingle with the local population, which of course they do anyway, and yes I’m rambling.

49. Town and country. No it’s not just a t-shirt brand. Town & Country is a good way to sum up the division of the island. One of the beautiful things about this place is you can go to Honolulu, a fairly large, cosmopolitan city, and then you can drive for 40 minutes and be in hardcore countryside with not a building over two stories in site. Haleiwa’s the biggest town up there, and it’s pretty rinky-dink. On the way up to north shore from town (Honolulu), you literally drive through miles & miles of pineapple and sugarcane fields, so you get this total feeling of separation from where you were. The drive up north from our side (Kaneohe area) is even nicer, all up along the coast, the water right there on your right, lots of funky beach parks (funky in a good way), all kine scenic stuff to peep, yah me likey.

50. Father Damien. This one you may have heard of. Back in the day, when the first Haoles came in and started living here, they had a big problem with the local people catching leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease. Yah this is the one where like your flesh basically rots and falls off. Anyway, they made this leper colony on Molokai, at this really remote location on the island (which Molokai is remote enough in itself) that to this day you can only access by boat or helicopter. Anyone who came up with the disease was sent to this colony for purposes of quarantining them from the general public. Apparently something about the biological makeup of Hawaiians make them especially susceptible to the disease. So there was this Catholic Priest named Father Damien (pictured at a young age) who lived and worked at the colony with all the lepers, and eventually after years and years, caught the disease and died of it himself. I’m pretty sure he was actually deified or whatever by the pope years ago, but anyway, he’s like a local legend for giving so much of himself to help and care for the people that had this terrible disease. The colony is actually still there, and there are a few remaining people from the old days that still live there.

---