Rethinking my comments

Today is Monday, March 10. This morning was Lono's funeral services in Nanakuli. I've posted photos. It was an interesting place for a funeral--the church rents space in a little business area near the Nanakuli courthouse. Maybe 150 people attended, mostly young people and mostly relatives. But there were also high school friends of Lono, friends of his siblings, family of siblings. The place was abuzz with children running around and friendly chatter. Everyone seemed like one big family--connected in different ways, but primarily connected through their respect and love for Lono.

In my first rant I made the comment that Lono was a man whose life and death seemed to have gone unnoticed by the community that he loved. I was in error. Everyone at the funeral was devastated and I saw, to my surprise, people I had not seen in at least 20 years--high school friends of his, fishing buddies, folks who at one time lived on the beach and remembered the Nihoa family and the times they shared. Darlene H. was there with her two daughters and grandchildren and noted that the times they spent camping at Sand Island Beach were good times, despite the fact that they had no regular home to go to. They felt close to the other families and the beach became a home while they were all together. My conversation with Darlene reminded me of a television show hosted by Channel 2 news back in 1991 or so when the news host, Bob Jones, facilitated an in-studio program to discuss issues of homelessness in Hawaii. Lono was there, in-studio. Jade Moon had earlier interviewed him on the beach, asking him how it felt to be homeless. This was, of course, before the term "homeless" came into popular use. In answer to her question, Lono replied "I'm not homeless. I live right over there," and he pointed to the tarp and blue tent where the family lived. He wasn't trying to be sarcastic. His honesty came through loud and clear. But at that time, just after federal funds had been appropriated for each state to deal with the issue of homelessness, there needed to be a way to determine who was homeless and who was not. So the folks who used to be 'beach people' (they lived on the beach, after all) became 'homeless' in order to be counted and to take advantage of services offered by homeless shelters and programs that were popping up all over the place. So Lono became homeless. And the family became homeless. And the system that had pretty much ignored them became a system that now took the 'problem' seriously because attached to the problem was a significant amount of money (as I recall, $6 million). Everybody on the beach, on all the beaches, became homeless overnight because they lived in "non-conventional dwellings". A whole slew of programs developed shortly afterward to deal with the 'problem'.

For years before that, everybody camped. Everybody got permits to camp. Our family camped at Waimanalo, at Kaiona Beach Park, for two weeks every summer from the time I was a kid. My parents applied for a two-week permit and all the aunties, uncles, and cousins camped together. As kids we felt those were the best times of our lives. It was safe and no one paid attention to us so we could stay up all night and look for crabs on the beach or play hide and seek. The parents played cards or sang or drank (poker and alcohol, as I recall, were standard!). After the Waimanalo evictions and the growing population at Sand Island, cops used to come around to check on the permits. It was no longer possible to get a permit for two weeks. It was shortened to one week. Then the same person couldn't get a permit for the same place twice in a row. So the families had to send someone else with a different name to get a permit. The city started to crack down on families by making it difficult to be homeless. Then new rules were made--campers had to break camp on Thursdays so the city could cut the grass and clean up. If anybody left their gear on the grounds, it would be taken by park keepers and trashed. Then the city began to put up gates so those who left their cars in the parking lot would be locked in, which discouraged families from visiting, especially if they had work the next day.

Homeless families started to move out to the Waianae coast and set up tents in the tall grass and bushes that were off the regular beach-goer's path. But both the city and state started to harass them and to cut back brush and trash tents, and confiscate property of the campers. The city and the state both refused to look at the larger issues involved, or to ask why this was happening. Seriously, would families with children opt to live in tents if they could afford to live in homes? But no one ever asked why there were so many families forced to live on beaches and in dangerous circumstances. They just kept booting them out, knowing there was no where else for them to go.

Around 1992, after federal funding came down, Lono and his family, as well as a number of other families at Sand Island, were adopted by Calvary-by-the-Sea Lutheran Church, by a program run by the pastor's wife, Ivy Olson. Ivy founded Angel Network Charities in 1989, and began outreach to people living on the beach, offering them food, clothing, support and, eventually, housing, in a kind of "homes without walls" program that helped move people into homes all over the island, picking up the tab for both first month's rent and deposit, and then assisting them to find jobs or income to continue to pay the rent. It was a tough job, but she persevered, and eventually a number of families found places to live. Lono's family was one of those. She helped him hook up with another church and that church helped Lono to find the means to move on to Hawaiian Homestead lot in Nanakuli a couple years later. All the brothers and sisters got together with Habitat for Humanity and put a house where once was an empty lot. They finally had a place of their own to live.

Lono never forgot that church, or Ivy. Ivy later became ill with cancer and at the funeral services at Calvary-by-the-Sea, all the families that she had helped showed up to mourn her.

And today, all the families and friends that Lono had helped showed up to mourn him. He was a such a good man. In a sense he carried forth her legacy-- she was such a good and caring person. I miss them both. She came into his life at the right time. I'm sure someone later on will tell about how Lono helped them by coming into their life at the right time. The circle goes round and round.

Today's gathering in Nanakuli reminded me that I should write about what I see. Here's what I saw today. After the pastor welcomed everyone, he asked that people come forward to greet the family and view the body. All the brothers and sisters, their wives/husbands, their children, on both sides of the family, stood up. There were so many of them they formed almost a circle at the front. Then everyone else stood up and came forward. I'd never seen so many people in the front near the casket to greet the line. It was both fascinating and beautiful to watch, even though it was solemn and people were crying. It was, obviously, the family--the caring community, a throwback to a time when we were all family, all related, all caring, with lots of hugging and kissing and down-home, bruddah-bruddah handshakes and happy-sad smiles. I tried not to cry, but at some point saw no sense in pretending that all was a-ok. Seemed dumb.

Brothers Kimo and Roy (Roy is now oldest son) gave the eulogy--beautiful, moving, simple. Kimo shared that when he was asked to do it, he said sure, but what's a eulogy? So he did a google on it. And everybody laughed at his joke and his honesty. Roy talked about Lono the fisherman, his 17 years as a deckhand, then as first mate, then engineer on the Corsair, and eventually his post as 'citizen captain' on both the Corsair and the Kula Kai aku boats. The boat owners were from Okinawa and couldn't legally be registered as captain, so Lono, as a citizen, became captain. Roy shared his respect for is older brother, as both of them after graduation from Castle High School went right out of school to fishing. Lono was strong and could catch the huge tuna for extended periods of time--no rest while the tuna are biting! Brian later shared that Lono gave them a sample of what catching a tuna was like--fill up a 5-gallon plastic container with water, hook it and lift it up over the shoulder. Roy said Lono could do this over and over again, that his strength and ability to work left him (Roy) in awe. The other thing that captured my attention was the fly fishhooks pinned to Lono's lapel--Roy made those (see photo). Roy said Lono taught all the brothers to make those fishhooks. They would have little contests to see who could make the best ones. Three of the brothers actually became fishermen, following in Lono's footsteps: Roy, Junior, and Aliiloa. After years and years of doing this, they realized they needed to have steadier means of income, and each of them sought land jobs.

I need to reflect more on what was important about today. That's another post. But let me leave you with this poem I wrote when I got home this afternoon:

For Lono
3.10.08

in early evening is when you know
the birds have come home for fellowship at dusk
cousins in different branches and trees
remark to one another their challenges at work
tell stories about close encounters
and chirp about what’s for dinner
as they settle down with family for the night
and the raucus noise of dinner conversation slowly fades

I’m reminded that here, in my small world
I have chosen not to look, but from afar
To step out of the nest so the young have space to grow
to find their own branches, or fly away
And my heart aches but too late
For, when I turn to look, they have departed
Wafted away by the wind, without so much as a quick goodbye
Leaving feathers like tiny raindrops that
Evaporate too quickly and remind me
that settling down with family for the night
is, in the end, all we have left

our sons and daughters grow up too quickly
too anxious to take the reins, to fly point
to branch out and build the nest of the world
and they go, sometimes, unprepared
but never afraid, never looking back
flying with the wind, carried by their own dreams
we love them all the while and shut down
those parts of ourselves that yearn to call them back
knowing, of course, there is no return once
they leave, as we have, the guarded sentinel of home

More later...