Post #204412 by pablus on Sat, Dec 24, 2005 8:23 PM

Good Advent Eve, All –

I saved this story for tonight because it seemed appropriate.
I have no idea why.
If you don’t know of my tiki adventures, I suggest you read the following stories to get a view of how things work out for me.

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=13461&forum=1&hilite=balinese

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=5542&forum=1

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=8878&forum=1&hilite=falernum

OK, enough of that.

Anyway, here I am playing at the beach at Honaunau.
Across the small bay from me is the Place of Refuge I documented in the “Let the drooling commence” post.

It’s a tiki place if ever there was one.

So – just out of frame to my left is an older guy fishing with a small net. Casting off of the lava shoals into the shallows.

Behind me – right next to The Amber Love Goddess who was taking the photo – is a group of 40-60 year old Hawai’ian guys drinking Natural Light beers and talking to each other in Hawai’ian and either laughing at me or giggling with delight. Doesn’t matter to me much.

Those guys had a dog with them – a white female who liked the poi and poke’ salad I was eating.

All these things I kept in my memory because it seemed all too beautiful to be true.

Being in Hawai’i and playing at that beach at that place.

Now let’s travel back in time several years. I had the opportunity to go to Fiji at one point during some summer and actually remember Rusty Key and I toasting my trip the night before I left. I was bummed out about the trip though because the idiot travel agent had booked this trip as a straight through flight with one stop and had me – a gargantuan – in the middle seat the whole way there and the whole way back. Plus I would only be in Fiji for a 3 day period. Kind of stupid, ehhh? Yeah, I thought so too. So when I woke up the next morning needing to get to the airport I decided – heck with it – I’m not going. I don’t care about the lost money or whatever – I’m not going to do this. I got on the phone and called my contact in Fiji and told them. And I got this guy named Tom, a Brooklyn-ite living there, to shoot the stuff I needed. He was a nice guy and also a diver and we were disappointed that we would not get to hang out together since we seemed to have a lot of the same interests. I told him we’d probably see each other again and to have a great shoot and I’d send him some money for his trouble.

Now back to my trip to Hawai’i.

I left the Big Island after a fantastic time with my love and the great people there and the beauty of Mauna Kea and I went to the Philippines to do the first of my shoots on this month long journey.

You know – when you go on these things you always wonder about things like – you know – dying and all. Especially when you get the message that one of your best buddies and bandmates just passed away while you are traveling. So you look for things to ease your heart and let you know that you are in the right place and doing the right thing. That’s me anyway. Always on the lookout for stuff like this.

The first place I was working in the Philippines was a small college in Manila. I have known the president there for many years and wanted to talk with him about his work. While we were chatting – this guy walks in and his name was Tom and we shook hands and started chatting and – hey – it was the guy from Fiji. Alright. We were friendly with each other and I explained the reasons I didn’t come over there at the time and we basically became buddies.

A couple of nights later, Tom and his wife joined us for dinner. It was my crew and I and the college president and his wife and several children. And at the end of the meal, I was asked to play a few songs on the uke that was in the car. And then Tom’s wife, named Ku’ulei, was very animated when she learned that I played the uke. So she came down the table and sat next to me while I played a couple of Haole tunes – a few originals and a Hawai’ian song. She commented that my Hawai’ian was pretty good and asked if I had ever been there.

“Why yes, I was just there a few days ago with my wife who went back to Tampa.”

‘Really!?! I was just there too visiting my father,” she said. “Where did you go there?”

I replied, “Well we went to Waikiki for a couple of days but fell in love with the Big Island.”

“Ahhhh, that’s where I grew up,” Ku’ulei said brightly. “Where did you go there?”

“Well, I’m really into tiki stuff, carvings and the art, the whole history – and I love to dive and snorkel – we really had a great time at this place called Place of Refuge. I got to play the uke there on the beach at Honaunau and…”

“Oh My!!!” she hit my arm “That’s where I grew up. At Honaunau.”

“Wow, “ I said, “what a great place – I was talking to Angela about how great it would be to live around there. We saw this old guy fishing with a small net…”

“Oh My God!!!” She hit me again. “That’s my dad.”

I was – you know – skeptical until she whipped out her camera and showed me a picture she took of her dad fishing with that net and – well – it was the guy I saw.

I ventured “Do you know the guys who drink the Natural…”

“Those are my uncles,” she hit me again. “Did you see their dog who always hangs around there?”

“The white one? “ I flinched at this point.

“That’s her. She loves fish.”

‘Yeah I found that out.”

We talked on for a while and she assured me that they were just greatly amused if a haole was playing uke on their beach and not making fun of me. She also assured me that she would call her father and her uncles and ask if they remembered me. And she also offered to help me with my Hawai’ian language songs. I played a new one for her I had just written about the mountains of the Big Island and she comforted me that my interpretation of the mountains was authentic. We became good friends that night and I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.

So, as this season and year comes to a close – make a promise to yourself to look carefully where you are and observe your surroundings and try to make sure that you’re where you should be. If not - then maybe you should try to take yourself there.

Hope you all are doing well… and mahalo nui loa for all of the emails and cards and kind words that you’ve offered me during a very weird and tough year. I appreciate the friendships I've made here very much and most here are very supportive and genuinely nice people. Rare, these days.

[ Edited by: pablus 2005-12-24 20:57 ]