Chapter Summaries

PART X

HAWAII:
THE VIP

(Vagabond in Paradise)

Chapter 39

THE HAPPY CAMPER AND THE BRODIE BUNCH

 

The Japanese aircraft descends peacefully over Pearl Harbor.  A few hours later, I am sitting at a stone table admiring the beauties of Wakiki Beach.   The first sensations of paradise do not obliterate the pull of recent familiarity as when I am soon sidled by jabbering Japanese tourists.  This scene hints at a turbulent undercurrent in the psyche of Hawaii.

The goal set in Tokyo has been achieved – Christmas will be spent in Hawaii.  It is just as lonely and noisy as it was in Greece, but with a distinct difference – the next passage will return Melawend and me to mainland North America.   Scheduled to arrive back in Fort Erie on July 2^nd, I must stay in Hawaii for four months – oh, benevolent fate!  Home becomes the youth hostels run by Thelma Akau and campsites on Sand Island beneath screaming jets (Camping Voula revisited).

I make my connection with the county government and the Hawaii Visitors Bureau, and then I set out to find a job. Rejection by one Honda dealer leads to good fortune as I am taken on as a "promotional liner" at Sandy Brodie’s Waipahu Cycles.  Sandy and his crew are all wonderful characters.  They include: Les Brinkley, the suave surfer-turned-salesman; Paul Ferrara, the sales rep who shoots BB guns with friends and likes to watch a stripper smoke a cigarette with her vagina; Rusty Stocks, the sardonic mechanic: and Randy Jernigen, the sarcastic Parts man.   There’s mild-mannered Sac Verdadero who makes repairs on Melawend and Steve "right-on" Smithe, Sandy’s right-hand man. And there’s Sandy himself, bald and burly and soft-spoken.  He walks with a limp from a motorcycle race accident.  The crew numbers nineteen and I join in their antics and rivalries.  (Left: Tom and Melawend reach an Odyssey milestone: Diamond Head)

Morgan Keene and Dan Martyniuk are instructors for the  Motorcycle Safety Foundation in Hawaii (Morgan is Chief Instructor and State Coordinator for MSF).   They take me out of camp and into their condo and teach me, among other things, how to ride a motorcycle safely.  Morgan is a bright-eyed, slap-the-hip workaholic.  Her endeavors are not merely organized, they’re Morganized.   Dan is a psychology graduate and tends to see things from all sides.   Also, he can almost make his Honda Interstate dance.

Making onward connections is still a must and I begin with LA – American Honda, star-photographer Douglas Kirkland and Louise Berle, the "cosmic philosopher" I met in Tokyo who offered to take me in when I reach LA.

Work begins on the JAL contract and magazine assignments – starting with motorcycle racing in Hawaii.  Bikers in leathers and "race face" with sexy groupies make for interesting observations.  At a nighttime race at Hawaii Dragway Park, I meet Tokyo-born Becky Waikida, the misunderstood girl who must tiptoe her monster machine up to the starting line and whose parents have offered her a new BMW (car) if she would give up motorcycling.

Local newspaper articles about the journey appear and I am invited out by locals like millionaire-in-the-making Tom Peyton who takes me boating along the infamous Wainai coast of Oahu.  Dr. Huffaker who sets up a convivial evening of shared tales with fascinating friends at his home at the foot of Diamond Head.

Lindy Boyes of the HVB soon has me scootouring Oahu’s attractions – to me, more touristed than touristy.  Meanwhile, she makes arrangements for me on three of the other islands.

Before coming to Hawaii, I have been given the impression that modern Hawaii was the balmiest of over-developed, over-hyped tourist traps. Sure enough, I find, for anyone who does not venture beyond Waikiki.  But Oahu seems amazingly under-developed, very rural in many areas with its acres of sugarcane and pineapple, awesome in its green fluted mountains and homey with its undulating subdivisions and old villages.  As my experience of Tokyo gave the city the feeling of being the wicked witch of the East, Hawaii became the Land of Ahs.  Somehow I know that I can get home from here.

However, I learn that all is not bliss in paradise. While the hula enjoys a revival, in modesty, unwary tourists are sometimes subjected to abuse by locals in certain areas.  Its unique fragile ecosystems are being decimated by erosion, deforestation and introduced plants and animals – 25 percent of all endangered species in the U.S. are in Hawaii.  Japanese land grabbers are buying up homes and acreage’s at inflated prices, distorting the local economy, infuriating Mayor Fasi and creating a new generation of homeless Hawaiians. To survive, it appears Hawaii must diversify its burgeoning service industry by developing high-tech industries, alternative energy programs and aquaculture.

Amid the problems, there is some comic relief in the form of the exiled Marcoses, living in guarded seclusion in Honolulu’s exclusive Mack Heights. Ferdinand exercises to prove his fitness, supporting his desire to return to the Philippines, but he fears he may be shot at the airport (like Benigno Aquino?). Imelda buys shoes at J.C. Penny’s and burgers at a local MacDonald’s – "It’s now a meal for me." And she sings love songs for her maligned husband.

Even around bustling Honolulu, I find truth in the slogan: "The beauty remains to be seen." I have encountered an Asian beauty and there is the possibility that together we might explore that promise on three of the other islands.  But it's complicated by her unsettled relationships.  Oh well. In the spirit of finding more of Hawaii's beauty, I set out for the other islands, without the girl and without Melawend.

 

Chapter 40

ASSIGNMENT: PARADISE

 

This tramp abroad who has slept in hay wagons in Europe now basks in luxury hotels – all Japanese owned. I am given the privilege of exploring Hawaii Island, Maui and Kauai in grand style but I also bring my tent along to feel Hawaii up close.

The experiences runt the gamut: sunset over Mauna Kea seen from a high lanai; mountain drives and rugged valley shuttles as at Waipio where tourists are guided by Kelly Loo who talks about this the birthplace of King Kamehameha and his own Chinese-Hawaiian heritage.  I walk the lunar landscape of old lava fields and fly high over new ones in David Okita’s helicopter.  Later, I tread gently on "Pele’s hair" to within forty feet of where flowing lava and the pounding surf marry in a violent union, giving birth to new land.  I visit the sacred site where fugitives won reprieve; the painted church where Perry Como sang in Christmas 1985 and the bay where Captain Cook met his fate.  I listen to the hum of Japanese-built windmills near the southernmost point in the U.S. and hunt down Mark Twain’s monkeypod tree.  And I observe a man photographing his topless wife on the deserted black-sand beach of Kalapana.

"Here today gone to Maui" reads the sticker.  I am again  alone in luxury, but the beauty of Maui, which indeed does remain, is uplifting.  I drive the superlative coastal road to Hana with its 617 curves and stumble upon the resting-place of Charles Lindbergh, marked with his own words.  Curvaceous Asian visitors swim in the Seven Sacred Pools of Oheo Gulch and windsurfers somersault over the waves at world-class Hookipa Beach.  A mother humpback whale and her calf draw close to the whale boat Maka Kai and inspire respect for nature.  I study the 1200-foot-high phallic-like Iao Needle, said to be an ancient lover turned to stone.   I step back to photograph tourists photographing the dramatic, bone-chilling sunrise over Haleakala Crater and pay respects at the pictured gravestones of Hawaiians at a seaside church.  Kamakura lost to Tokyo is gained at Lahina. 

But when I return alone to the calm luxury of the Maui Prince Hotel and, from my lanai, look out upon sublime sunsets, I wonder what could ever make someone want to be a recluse.  This is to be shared.  To have seen so much alone is heartbreaking.

Then it’s on to Kauai, location of some of Hollywood’s best productions.  I spend three nights at the Coco Palm Resort where Elvis Presley wed Joan Blackman in Blue Hawaii, and where Tattoo said to Mr. Roarke on TV’s Fantasy Island, "Boss! Da plane! Da Plane!" I take a helicopter ride over the Huleia River where Steven Spielberg filmed scenes for Raiders of the Lost Ark, down into "the Grand Canyon of the Pacific" – Waimea Canyon – where a nervous mountain goat clings tenaciously to a sheer wall.   Then Lambert, the pilot, says he has a surprise for his passengers.  Like a scene out of a movie, the chopper clears a sharp ridge.  There is a sudden 3,000-foot drop into the ethereal valleys of the Na Pali coast.  Dino DeLaurnetis’ King Kong lived here.  The chopper swoops around Mount Makana, Bali Hai of South Pacific, and into the crater of Mount Waileale, the rotors swirling the rains of the wettest place on earth.

At Polihale State Park, I find a man’s swimming trunks with a woman’s panties and bra.  I conceive my own movie plot.  Back at the Coco Palms, a teacher talks of poor Hispanics and street gangs in LA.  And on a nearby beach that is otherwise deserted, I observe the affections of a couple who have paradise to themselves.

Nowhere in the world has drawn the sharpest edge of loneliness than has Hawaii - and I am growing weary of seeing so much beauty by myself and of being alone in my life.  Sadly, happily, it’s time to go back to Oahu and make preparation for the return to North America.

 

Chapter 41

THE WEEPING SKIES OF HAWAII

 

Perhaps it’s just a wanderer’s fatigue but things seem different back on Oahu – welcomes appear to be wearing thin: I’ve been a vagabond here too long.  Whereas Easter in Nairobi was something shared, here it seems a tolerated presence.  But newly met native Hawaiians at camp rekindle the warmth of Hawaii.  Maybe it was just the necessity of pulling oneself away psychologically from paradise when departure is near that has brought on a sense of isolation. Matters are made worse when money problems are reasserted – Melawend’s repairs drain my wallet.

There are other departures: Morgan and Dan lament the death of a former student who dies in a motorcycle accident largely because he was not wearing a helmet. And Les is compelled to leave Sandy’s for a better-paying job.

It’s just the ebb and flow of life.  Work continues at Sandy’s.  Les and his wife and their dogs host me as I cover Hawaii’s fifth annual "Hare ‘n Hound" – a cross-country motorcycle race through the rugged hinterlands of Oahu.  Melawend just observes the contest.  Finally, the Hawaii Visitors Bureau sets me up in a splendid hotel in Waikiki, a fine place to end the sojourn in Hawaii that began four months earlier.  I enjoy sushi with my hosts.

There is one more mountain, or rather, crater rim, to climb – Diamond Head.  On its calm summit, amid the ruins of bunkers and cannon emplacements, I look out over Waikiki, Honolulu and the Pacific horizon.  I remember the look-alike corner of the Niagara Escarpment that Melawend and I had passed on the first day – over two years ago – when I worried about all the obstacles there were to be overcome to reach this place.  Now the familiar sadness of leaving is felt most profoundly.   This is heightened by the knowledge that the Odyssey itself is nearing its conclusion.  The rest seems like a ride home much like one made several years earlier.  It’s a return, but to what?

Back on Waikiki Beach, I look back upon Diamond Head.  I observe the people on the beach.  Close below me, there is a couple laying on the sand.   She is curled up in a fetal position with a knee tucked into his crotch.  Without inhibition on the crowded shore, he fondles one of her breasts.  Nearby, a little girl who is building a sandcastle, smiles at her parents.  Here and there, gray pot-bellied tourists in floppy expensive beachwear gaze silently over the sea, perhaps reflecting on the odyssey of their own lives.  Later, from my high lanai, I see a couple canoodling on their high-rise lanai.  They go inside and draw the curtains.  It occurs to me that the real paradise of life is the wondrous cycle of life.  It occurs to me that it is time to go home.

It rains as Sandy drives me to the airport the next day.

"There is an old saying that if it rains when you are leaving, it means Hawaii is weeping at your departure, hoping you will return," Sandy says.

A come-again aloha?  Hopefully.  In the narrative, I recount the departures of others: Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Mark Twain…

As the jet tilts and Hawaii recedes into memory, I close my eyes and fill my mind with that "sweet land of liberty", feeling the essence of Neil Diamond’s "America" – a passion now realized from that flight to England so much of life experience ago.

PART XI

America, America!

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