Homespun Honolulu

King Lunalilo’s tomb was blessed with new kahili a few weeks ago as part of the King’s 175th birthday.  These kahili were beautiful new additions to replace the old ones that were not in the greatest of shape after all of these years.

Apparently the making of the new kahili was orchestrated by Paulette Nohealani Kahalepuna which says to me that these kahili were not only crafted of feathers but that they were done correctly, carefully, and beautifully.

The gentleman pictured here on the left is Kamehameha Maertens.  He is quite familiar with the kahili in King Lunalilo’s tomb.  Back in 1938 an article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin listed him as one of the kahili bearers back then. Mr. Maertens’ grandson took him to the new kahili event to celebrate Lunalilo’s 175th birthday on January 31st at the King’s tomb on the grounds of Kawaiaha’o Church.

That, in my opinion, is certainly something worth talking about — a man revisits a part of history that he himself was a part of.  I’m not sure how many of us will be around long enough to see history repeat itself or to say we actually had a hand in it!

In the Star-Bulletin article, Kamehameha Maertens was listed incorrectly as a member of the Royal Order of Kamehameha.  His first name may have been the reason for the reporter’s confusion but he was certainly an important part of the royal procession paying tribute to the memory of a man who was once a very popular monarch.

After all of those years gone by, I can’t help but wonder if he ever dreamed that his own grandchild would push for the preservation of the Hawaiian culture through the protection, perpetuation, and restoration of its treasured language.  In case you can’t get into Facebook, here’s the meat of what’s on the other end of this link:

“After the unlawful overthrow of the Hawaiian government by white supremacists, four generations of Hawaiian people endured cultural genocide beginning in 1896 when the Hawaiian language was banned as a medium of public instruction. 30+ years have passed since the 1978 Hawai’i State Constitution nominally restored Hawaiian as an official language along with English, yet speakers of Hawaiian cannot vote using their language. Without public information readily available in Hawaiian, the current policy of English-only community services is indeed tantamount to ethnic cleansing! Will you please join with us to implement Hawai’i’s Official Languages Act to put this unfortunate era of cultural genocide against Hawaiian speaking people behind us for good?”

I’ve talked about this before and, while it is a touchy subject, most people will agree that it is a terrible thing to cut off a people from their own language.  It is a wretched behavior for a country claiming to be “civilized.”  Make no mistake about it, I’m an American and proud of it, but there are times when I just don’t know what we were thinking!  But I digress.

There are quite a few of us who missed the Hawaiian-language boat in school and are now trying to learn.  This is where Mr. Maertens’ grandson comes in.  Michael Malulani Odegaard is trying to help us do just that.  Some students are doing better than others.  I have to admit that life, as usual, gets in the way of that too.  Mahalo, Kumu, for all you do and for your infinite patience!

For those of you looking to learn ‘olelo Hawai’i or looking to brush up on your skills a little, there are small classes available on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 PM and Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 7:00 PM.  Follow this link for more information about the Wednesday evening class and for contact information in case you have questions.

For those who try to call it a dead language, I’m very happy to let you know that you are sadly mistaken!  It’s alive and well and getting stronger every day!

Comments left on Facebook will be copied and shared here on Homespun Honolulu so everyone will be able to listen to your thoughts and input.

While listening to the tsunami warnings this morning and the boat harbors asking boat owners to move their vessels out into deeper water, I couldn’t help but think about “my boat.”  What happens to the Falls of Clyde when a threat like this one comes over the Civil Defense and other warning systems?

Relatively recently I received an email message about the Falls of Clyde with this YouTube video.  I cried.  Of course.  I almost started again while making sure this link worked.  The video kind of shows what many people wanted to have happen to the Falls before the Friends of the Falls of Clyde stepped up to stop it.

I’ve been thinking about sharing this here but there is nothing like the threat of a tidal wave to get someone to their keyboard.  Still listening to the news and all of the closed City parks, shopping malls, and golf courses, etc., I’m more worried about the sea vessels getting bashed.

Hmmm… a tsunami moves at the speed of a jet.  It’s scheduled to hit the Big Island of Hawai’i at about 11:05 this morning, February 27, 2010, and the rest of the islands in succession after that.  Hilo Bay is going to be the lucky recipient of this “event.”

Standing by and worrying about how it will all pan out.

Updated 03/01/2010 - No impact.  Civil Defense did a good job.  Local media stayed on top of the crisis and kept us informed from start to finish.  No panic.  There was just a lot of people doing what they felt needed to be done.

Now that Hawai’i is in the clear, I can’t help but think about poor Chile.  Google offers some ways to help if you can.

It always comes as such a surprise and I am  always quite moved when a corporation takes steps to assist the community where it does business, and/or takes steps to educate itself about that community.  Respect, preservation, and education is not always something taken on by corporate America’s larger brand names.

In the most unlikely of places, we found a little bit of cultural respect from Wal-Mart.  I’m not one to give a lot of credit to Wal-Mart since most of what we hear about them is anything but good news, but I’ll give them this one.

In Hawai’i, the finding of iwi (bones) is probably one of our most sensitive and touchy subjects.  Honolulu probably suffers from the largest number of incidents because it is constantly growing and there is always something being built.

The discovery of iwi during the construction of the Wal-Mart store on Ke’eaumoku Street was a finding taken very seriously.  The last I heard when this came to light was that there were 64 set of iwi that were about 150 years old.  While things were kept relatively low key, it was not an all-happy or non-confrontational event!  Findings such as these occur much more frequently than we would like them to and the parties involved had no problem sharing their views.

After reading through some of the articles, it seems to me that some of the “experts” hired to do a job were perhaps not the best choice to handle a matter so delicate and/or to handle the treasured bones themselves.  I know we have talked before about the importance of the iwi in Hawaiian culture.  These are not dinosaur bones from an archaeological dig!  They are family members!

Wal-Mart, and any other business for that matter, cannot always control the behavior of the people they hire to perform a service.  It is difficult to be at the mercy of those performing work that is outside one’s own line of business.  That’s why they hire specialists.  All of that aside, I think the completed memorial is actually very attractive and whoever was in charge of that, did a fine and respectful job!

There are, as you can see, “Keep Out” and “Don’t Walk on Grass” signs all around this little monument.  It looks quite a bit like a heiau and it is surrounded by newly-planted indigenous plants, the kind often found in such places.  They originally said it would be landscaped and open to the public so perhaps they’re waiting for the plants to take root.  In case residents haven’t found it yet, the photo above shows you exactly where it is — on the corner of Makaloa and Sheridan Streets on the property shared by Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.

Cultural preservation is on the upswing in Hawai’i and it’s not all being left only up to us.

Getting ready for work and listening with one ear to the news the other morning, I was stopped in my tracks and had to run to the TV and press rewind on the remote (thanks to Oceanic Time Warner Cable, we can do that!).  As I fumbled for the right button I muttered, “They’re doing what?!?  No way!”

I love this story and I’m sending a shout out to the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel for being a part of the community where they do business and for proactively reinforcing its culture!  KHON2 News did a nice little segment about a family whose son wanted a big tree on their property to be made into a canoe.  I hesitate because links like that one often become dead when the story gets moved so I’ll include the gist of it here just in case.

Their son passed away six years ago but his dream may still become a reality.  The Ka’anapali Beach Hotel asked the family to donate that same tree for them to turn into a canoe!  Based on a quote from the KHON2 News article, the father responded:

“The only thing we like out of this is to have the canoe named after my son cuz for a while he had already seen this being one canoe”

The hotel agreed, and named the canoe “Kaililaau.”

The canoe is being built as part of the hotel’s Pookela program which allows employees to learn aspects of the Hawaiian culture.

Building a canoe is certainly no easy task and for the hotel to have done this with the goal of perpetuating a piece of Hawaiian culture is nothing less than commendable!

Mahalo to KHON2 and kudos to the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel!

See how great it is when big business does the right thing? 

The parcel of land once known to all of us as Hawaii Raceway Park is scheduled to go on the auction block on Tuesday, February 2, 2010.  Once upon a time, (in years before 2006) hearts raced to the sounds of revving motors .  There will be no more of that kind of excitement near Campbell Industrial.

Some time ago I mentioned that it was a hard thing to lose Hawaii Raceway Park and that it affected a lot of people.  As dangerous as car racing is, Hawaii Raceway Park kept a lot of our youth in a legal racing environment, it kept them busy, and it kept them off the streets!  It was a passion they could share with others and it even provided potential career training for the automotive devotees.

I know that, at one time, there were people who blamed the closure of the Park for some of the motor vehicle accidents plaguing our streets.  We had a rash of racing on Honolulu’s roadways as young racing enthusiasts seemed to like using the public roadways and the H-1 freeway as outlets for their racing abandon.

Kapolei Raceway LLC had all of the intentions of restoring the park to its former glory, maybe better, but was apparently not able to manage the financial needs of this endeavor.  Despite all of the lobbying that fans did for its support.

Foreclosure is an ugly word for all but particularly for Honolulu’s racing community right now. This story seals it!  Sigh.  So many memories, so many stories.  The location has slid backwards in recent years with the loss of this and the feed lot.   I just know our beef tasted better back then.

Is Anybody Listening?

Meanwhile, Lt. Governor, Duke Aiona wants to talk about a Hawaii Sports commission.  Let’s see, race car driving is a sport.  Ya think?  Let me tell you where to be with Aunty Linda’s wallet on Tuesday!  Are you listening?!?

We should get that baby up and running again just in time to join in with Disney’s newest project, Aulani and… yeah baby!   Yo, Hawaii Tourism Authority, are you listening?   Keep the streets safer, bring the racing enthusiasts down here from the mainland for events, and put the burning rubber where it belongs — earning money instead of burning taxpayer dollars!

“Is anybody listening?  Let us know!”

As I was sitting listening to Haunani Apoliona talk about OHA’s role in the community, and as I watched the keiki at one of the ‘Aha Punana Leo schools talk about ethnic food dishes (using the Hawaiian language of course) I can’t help but feel a need to share some gratitude with Oceanic Time Warner Cable and the State of Hawaii’s Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA) for their continued support of community programming!

We almost lost it, or at least a big chunk of it, or so we thought! The franchise contract was up for renewal and one of the articles I read seemed to have a very negative view of what the outcome would be.  The concern was largely focused on the availability of channels designated for various types of community programming.

No need to worry — there’s good news!  The conditions of the newly-restored, 20-year franchise include, aside from other things, the addition of more community channels!  Instead of the six (6) we had before, there will now be fourteen (14)!  We will have even more places to accommodate the PBS, ‘Olelo, and PEG (public, educational, and governmental) channels than ever before!

Mahalo to DCCA and Time Warner Cable for staying on top of the things deemed important to the viewers!

The anticipation is greater than Heinz ketchup!  This is yet another event that I wait for every year.  Perhaps the greatest community event in Honolulu!  Okay, so I’m biased.

Yes, I know the Honolulu Marathon really is “all that,” in many ways, but the Great Aloha Run seems to be more about community involvement and sharing the aloha that we all hold so dear.

Come to think of it, there seems to be a lot more visitors for the Honolulu Marathon than there are for the Great Aloha Run.  Does the Great Aloha Run have visitors from elsewhere?  Oh yeah!  Last year we had participants join us from various places around the continental U.S. and even some from Canada.

Every year there are 20,000+ participants in this event and they are walking, running, and just plain having a good time with their families and friends.

Even the events that kick off the event are full of fun.  Meadow Gold saw to that this year.  On Fort Street in downtown Honolulu both Lani Moo and POG (Passion Orange Guava) were there to add a little to the festivities.

There are a lot of sponsors but this year, the Title Sponsor is Kaiser Permanente.  I suppose that’s a bit more fitting than Hawaiian Telcom, being that the Great Aloha Run does give a heck of a strong push for health and fitness.

If you haven’t signed up yet, don’t worry, there’s still time!  You can get the registration form, fill it out and mail it in.  You can even wait for the Sports, Health & Fitness Expo (February 12, 13 & 14), the three days before the event, and register then!

There is no event quite like this one to light a fire under me to start “talking” again.  I miss writing, I miss talking, and I so miss sharing!  We’ll talk about the New Year and early resolutions in a bit.  Right now, let’s talk about Christmas and one of the landmark events that signal that it is upon us.

Street Bikers United Hawaii joined forces with the United States Marine Corps Reserve, just as they do every year.  The fun part is that there are always new surprises and fun things to see.

Every year I wait for this event, just because.

Phenomenons like this one happen across the country.  Hawai’i is not the only State to see this happen.  Yes, I call it a phenomenon because our bikers just show up with little provocation.  I’m obviously not the only one who looks forward to this!

There is just something so delightful about a bunch of toy-carting bikers that is enough to make people’s hearts all warm and fuzzy.  Of course that’s after they’re done scratching their heads.

It’s an awesome sight; let me show you!

Since I need to get rid of my wheels (since I have four instead of only 2) before I venture out with my camera, I find a safe spot to get rid of them and go the rest of the way on foot to Magic Island where the event begins.

Many bikers get close to Magic Island but some stop for breakfast before continuing — including Santa and some of his elves.

When I first got there the parking lot was already starting to fill up.

It was amazing to watch the lot fill up and get more and more crowded.  Who would have thought that there were even that many bikes on Oahu?

The lot was filling with more bikes, more Santas, more toys, and more enthusiasm.  When all was said and done, there were over 6,500 bikes!

As they continued to file in, I kept thinking about just how perfect the weather was for a day like this.  It wasn’t too hot but the sun was out and being its usual bright self.  

It was a good thing that it wasn’t too hot because the volunteers directing the influx of bikers were being kept very busy!  The bikers dressed in Santa suits must have been baking up pretty nicely as well.

There were more people than bikes because a lot of the bikers had their ladies with them.

Here is Ralph and Wanda — these two go everywhere together!  I was looking for them because I really don’t know anybody else personally.  I found them!  These two are inseparable and theirs is a heartwarming relationship to watch.

Here’s a dad with his little lady.  This cutie got a lot of attention from those of us with cameras — you can tell by the shadows off to the right.  You can also tell that she was a little embarrassed by all of the attention.

There were a variety of other kinds of passengers too!

All of these characters riding with these ferocious bikers. Terrible, terrible! :)

Here is a favorite group of characters!  GEICO was there walking around and handing out bandannas.  In a feeble attempt to score a gecko scarf I said, “I don’t have a bike but my car is GEICO-insured!”

“It’s all good!” was the response.  Hmmm, that was not so feeble after all.  I ended up with a couple of crisply-folded bandannas tucked in at my waist — I was a walking advertisement!  Trust me, they didn’t mind.

The run/parade was supposed to start at 10:00 am but at 10:30 bikers were still filing into the park.

At the ultimate destination, Kapiolani Community College, the Marines collected the cargo from the bikers and still the smiles of participants and spectators continued to appear on faces old and young.

Here, Santa had the Grinch all tied up!

This Grinch was on the loose.

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!

At the end of the line the bikes are more spread out so you can see all of the polishing that went on before this event.

You can also see a few more oddities that we missed at the beginning of all this.  I’m guessing those are moose antlers but they do quite nicely as reindeer antlers.  It’s Christmas time and these “reindeer” can fly!  As always, they should fly safely.

Now that I’ve shared all of that, I have to say how happy I am to be sharing this fun event with everyone and I’m sorry that I have not been writing and sharing more recently.  The fire has been lit — thanks to Street Bikers United and our Marines!  I’m starting early with my resolutions.  I hereby resolve to post more often and try not to let a down time like this happen again!

I’ve got two weeks to whip this baby into shape!  

I’m a sucker for things that are naturally fantastic.  I saw this wood piece at an art show at Honolulu Academy Art Center At Linekona back in 2007 and have marvelled at it ever since.

This sensual “woman” was made by the artist from one piece of wood. Unfortuantely for me, I no long have the artists name. I will try to find it and include it here later! What a genius. I don’t remember the price either, or if it was even for sale. I didn’t notice the blue ribbon at first, until I was done gawking in disbelief.

I get way too worked up about these things but I do love them because I’m crazy like that!  Everyone should give it a try at least once!  The Hawai’i Craftsmen are having their 42nd Annual Statewide Juried Exhibition right around the corner and I’m excited to go see what they will have for us to see.  Don’t worry, the Exhibition runs from October 10th to the 31st so you have lots of time.  Just don’t put it too far on the back burner!

Honolulu Academy Art Center At Linekona
1111 Victoria Street
Honolulu, Hawai’i
(On the makai (ocean) side of Beretania Street between Thomas Square and McDonald’s)

Representatives from the Obama Administration are here in Honolulu, as we speak, to hear what we have to say as they prepare a proposal for a cohesive U.S. Ocean Policy. This “listening session” is today, Tuesday, September 29th, from 1:30 to 6:30 PM at Blaisdell Center.

Kahea, the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, is urging everyone who is able, if time allows, to get down there and be heard about the protection and preservation of our oceans. Kahea has even gone so far as to provide child care for parents while they are making their concerns known to this Presidential committee.  Yes, this is very last minute but that is so typical of all offices of government.  The door is open and those in the know need to walk through it and share your knowledge!

While we always want to “maximize the economic and social benefits of what the ocean offers, while protecting our most fragile marine ecosystems,” it is important to remember that we cannot, and WILL NOT, tolerate anything less than doing so with aloha and not allowing our oceans to become the private property of a select few. 

Of particular interest and concern is the promotion of aquaculture and making this visiting group see that this can work!  Hawai’i, as usual these days, needs to set the example.  We have made it work and it is sustainable.  I strongly urge anyone specializing in aquaculture to hele on down to Blasidell and tell them what you know!  You can prove it!

The ocean is important to us.  It is part of our lifestyle and has always been a part of our culture.  We’re surrounded by it so we need to protect it and take a stand!  Those of you versed in the subject matter of the sea, please help them make the right choices and recommendations back in Washington!   They’re reasonable and the will listen if we make an effort to be heard.   

No, not the bicycle kind of bike, the motorcycle kind of bike.

Just in case Hawai’i got dropped out of the loop on this, Monday (tomorrow), June 15, 2009 is the 18th Annual Ride to Work Day!  Follow the link for more information — I was glad to see some governmental backing on this.

It would be nice if I wasn’t such a coward.  It’s not the bikes themselves — it is the drivers.  It’s not as much the drivers of the bikes as it is the other cars on the road.  I have a problem with road rage and I do tend to be very impatient — not a good M.O. for anyone on a motorcycle. We all have to be respectful of each other and of our right to use the roads.

My concern is for their safety so I have to practice what I preach!  Let’s share the road shall we, please? Especially this coming Monday, “Look Twice, Save a Life.  Motorcycles are everywhere!”  Looking forward to it!