Larry the Hawaiian Santa Clause
For those who followed my personal blog when I was in Hawaii, I referenced Larry a long time ago. For whatever
reason, I haven't gotten around to giving him a proper introduction until now.
In September of 2010, I had just settled into my apartment on the North Shore of O'ahu. I went down to the beach to soak it all in, where I found Larry down by the water making hats out of palm fronds. When I first saw him, I wondered if he was homeless. I don't know if it's because his clothes were all tattered, his skin worn by the sun, his unguarded and overly-friendly demeanor, or the fact that he was chillin' on the beach making hats for the tourists at 2 in the afternoon on a weekday. But he also had this sagacious presence that reminded me of Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies.
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| My backyard- Aweoweo Beach Park |
I saw he had a few fishing lines in the water, so we started talking about that. I bragged about how I had become an accomplished spearfisher in Samoa. His response was,
"oh well me, I don't do all that. I don't even like to say I'm a fisherman. I'm just out here feeding the fish." My boyfriend at the time brought us some beers to celebrate our move, and the next thing you know the sun had gone down and Larry was my friend. Over several months, it became ritual that I surfed after work, but if
it was flat, I'd go "feed the fish" on the beach with Larry.
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| The bike path |
One time I was jogging down the bike path and he pulled over
in his white van that had red carpet and always smelled of fish and
incense. He honked a few times, and from his window came a freshly sewn
plumeria lei (pictured below in a dried-out state). He yelled, "
maybe this help you smell mo betta!"
He was always giving me food-- macadamia nuts, fresh fruit and veggies
from his farm, fish, leftover plates from BBQs, etc. He even hooked up
all these starter plants with local herbs and fruits for my
apartment-garden.
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| Starter plants gifted by Larry |
Over time, he taught me how to be a more graceful and patient fisher-woman. I had a
goal that I wanted to become skilled in catching prawn. We went out
several evenings, but we and always ended up
making too much noise to catch anything. Even though I returned many
nights covered in mud and empty-handed,
he taught me the skills required of a decent water-person-- patience and grace (sometimes, you're just "feeding the fish").
He gave me a ride to Costco once, and if pushing a cart around a Costco
in Hawaii during sample hour isn't hard enough, he stopped to talk to
nearly everyone in the store who called him by name. He was a celebrity! He, in turn,
remembered everyone else's name
and their kids' names. After he
helped me unload everything, I tried to give him a big tub of macnuts,
some chocolates, and a tub of fresh poke (raw marinated tuna). It was
nearly impossible to get him to accept anything! When he finally did, I
watched him go down to the parking lot to offer the bounty to some
people returning from work.
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| Waialua Sugar Mill |
After several months of "feeding the fish" with Larry, I found out later from my boss at Surf N Sea that Larry was a reputable legend. He basically ran the electric operations at the
Waialua Sugar Mill before he and thousands of other immigrant workers (indentured servants) were laid off.
The whole history behind sugar plantations in Hawaii is heartbreaking. They were bought out by big American companies, and the industry imploded when the supply couldn't match the demand. Waialua, the city where we lived, is something of a "ghost town".
Why did I think he was a bum? Why/how is the definition of "affluence" so different between Hawaii and the Mainland?
