It’s hard to imagine, but the Hawaiian islands a generation ago were not a hotspot of tourism and a bustling modern culture; most people lived simple lives with few amenities. It’s also hard to imagine a time when exotic fruits were not found in your local store year round – exotic being bananas, kiwi fruit, avocadoes or papayas. My Swiss mother-in-law remembers when bananas came to Switzerland, and they were exotic and expensive; in her house, they were only bought for her brother, who was very sick at the time, as a source of energy; that was during World War 2. Once, she confessed to stealing some money from her brother’s piggy bank to buy herself a banana.
By clicking here, you can watch a ~10-minute video of a series of short video clips from the 1920’s of Hawaii, interspersed with silent-film-era title cards. Not only is it an interesting glimpse into a simpler time on the islands, but it’s also an insight into what the rest of America “knew” about the islands, foods and customs. Back then, the world in general also knew very little about strange activities such as “surf riding” (surfing), and the footage of surfers is utterly tame compared to the monster wave-riding considered “for surfers” today! Volcanic activity also seems to have been a fascination; such footage may well have been the first time anyone had seen such a thing outside of volcanic regions; it still had to be described in colours, however, such as “cherry red” for the lava, as the footage was, obviously, in black and white.
The image below is of King’s Mansion, in Kealakekua, Hawaii, on the Big Island. As a student, I lived there in 1986 (my dorm window was the left bay window at the front). We had avocado trees in the back garden, and our neighbour’s horses, across a stone wall, would come trotting to the wall when they saw us in the garden, hoping for an avocado; we’d feed them, entertained as they carefully chewed away the flesh around the pit (reminding me of an old man chewing tobacco!), and then skillfully spit the seed out. At the bottom of our front garden stood a huge banyan tree [if you were standing on the covered lanai (porch) at the front of the house, it would be to your left – not shown]; it was a favourite tree to climb. At the bottom of our terraced garden was a volleyball court; it was popular, though we could also hike up the next hill over to the local school, where we could use their tennis courts. If you hit the ball over the high fence, you’d be hiking through the jungle to bring the ball back! Maybe the local students got tired of the same problem, as the jungle eventually gave way to a baseball diamond.
On 8 July, we were asleep in our dorm bunk beds; at around 2:30 a.m., I was awakened by what I first thought was my restless bunkmate – but which turned out to be an earthquake. The San Andreas Fault had slipped, and what had taken me 9 hours to fly took the earthquake 9 minutes to travel, hitting the Big Island. It kicked off a chain event of volcanic eruptions, aftershocks, and strange weather conditions: The heat of the volcanic air and the cool ocean created thick, milky white clouds at the level of our house (at the top of a hill) that rolled over our lanai and into the open classroom – soaking our books and the carpet the first time; after that, we got smart and put our books on our laps whenever the thick cloud rolled in. It also made gorgeous “sunsets” mid-day, as the volcanic ash dimmed the sun. I don’t know if they were connected, but soon after the volcanic eruption, Hurricane Estelle hit the islands; as King’s Mansion is up in the hills, we mainly felt the tropical storms, wind and rain, though it was creating 15 to 20-foot waves at one point, which we could see from our vantage point. I grew up in the heart of Tornado Alley and chased tornadoes for the fun of it as a teenager, so I took the earthquakes and storms in my stride.
One person deserves a special place in such memories: Gran’pa Joe Cho. He was a retired Hawaiian neighbour who enjoyed spoiling us rotten. He’d bring us treats and take us girls out on the town. He would admonish the boys to treat women right and then show them how to do it! One memorable evening, Joe Cho had taken a group of us girls out to get Kona Mud Pie, then to Manta Ray Point (aka the Kona Surf Hotel’s surf zone – the rays would swim around the underwater lights near the shore, catching the plankton attracted by the lights), and then we stretched out on a green of the Kona Country Club golf course, right on the edge of a rocky cliff, to watch the stars; we saw a meteor shoot so brightly that its reflection could be seen on the ocean waves.
It was a lifetime ago, but they will always be grand memories…
Stephanie Huesler 