People Dying

it's sunday evening and i got a phone call that someone i had known for a long time, and lived with for 14 years or so, just passed away. i felt sad, both for him and for me--for not having been able to work things out so that we could stay together. but we were mean to each other and everybody around us caught flack. it was our fault, totally. apparently he had had a fall and a heart attack yesterday. i meant to go visit him today, or at least call. but i didn't. and then this evening i got a call that he had passed at castle hospital. he was a year older than me, was a smoker, and was, i think, high strung. he was a kind man, sometimes, and really aggressive about what he wanted. it wasn't a good fit. when he went to prison, all i could think of was that i was free at last. so i went one way, and after he got out of prison, he went another. that part of my life was over. and i went on to school and to do other things. but i feel it appropriate to honor his memory by recognizing that he and i shared a life together for a long time, even if it was rough a lot of that time.

yesterday morning james and i headed up to nuuanu pali for the commemoration of the battle of nuuanu. it was kinda cold out. the women from the women's prison were there with their guards--they came to participate in the ceremony at the invitation of chuck burrows, as they regularly help with the clean up of ulupo heiau, a project that chuck oversees. the ceremony, as always was beautiful. i videotaped portions of it, and also took photos. they're posted at http://olympus.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=bhucg3l.cdshzrkd&Uy=s7h0ww&Ux=0&UV=166654196375_330607414605 if anyone wants to go look. i also attached a video at the bottom.

after the morning ceremony, our civic club's cast and crew of "ka lei maile alii -- the queen's women" met at 1 pm at city hall auditorium to perform the re-enactment. it was the 'hawaii women of distinction' event, sponsored by the bishop museum. in this case, they were honoring mrs. nawahi. kanalu young did keanu's presentation. his was entirely different than what keanu had presented in the past. and he wasn't given enough time to finish it before the play itself began. nevertheless, it went okay. i could see people crying, a good thing when we're trying to gauge how the performance is being received. but i don't think we'll do anything like that again, as the time they gave us kept getting shorter--first 55 minutes, then 45 minutes. it was hectic and i'm glad it's over.

today james, akoni, and i went to the palace to cut the grass in the burial mound. it was so LONG! yikes! akoni cut inside, james did the outside, and i just stripped yellow ti leaves and pulled weeds. that took a couple hours and we didn't even finish! baron came by to turn on the water sprinkler, so that ended the weeding part.

so i ended up the day unpacking and repacking stuff for the move in may. i amaze myself at the stuff that i have saved over the years. i found francis boyle's st. thomas law review article titled "restoration of the independent nation state of hawaii under international law, from summer 1995. then i found a bunch of old newspapers: ka huliau, an independent newspaper focusing on hawaii and pacific issues from the 1980s; the worker for hawaii, 1977 [interesting article, "protect kahoolawe ohana says: 'Not Our Laws'. here's the first paragraph: "on may 19th, the trial of joyce kainoa and sam kealoha, the first of 14 who face charges of trespassing on the island of kahoolawe, drew the battle lines for the struggle ahead. on one side stood the military and the courts, with judge sam king trying time and time again to make sure that the legal system of the land would rule the course of the struggle. on the other side stood the ohana, now swelling in size with over 300 supporters taking a stand on the side of the hawaiian people..."

sabine, i am thinking of you as i write this, as i know you would have liked to go through this stuff with me. when you come back you can go over it yourself. it's amazing stuff.

what else is there? a few copies of a newspaper called 'hoe hana' from the early 1970s. one interesting story deals with how roland kotani and kenn saruwatari from hawaii were booted from yale for protesting william shockley's (from stanford) claims that black people were genetically inferior with regard to intelligence, as "each 1% of caucasian ancestry raised IQ level by one point" and that eugenics was necessary to eliminate 'bad genes', thus a sterilization program should be put in place for blacks. there's so much stuff here, as relevant now as it was then. this issue also has a photo of ceasar chavez joining striking moanalua carriage workers when he visited here in 1974.

other magazine issues: the young micronesian (congress is burned, marianas wants secession) , the valley isle (were helm and mitchell murdered?), indochina chronicle 1974, Z magazine 1989. i also have a copy of the transcripts of the senate closed session of may 31, 1898. this is the document referenced in the 1969 advertiser news article that keanu noted--he called the national archives and ordered a copy of the doc and i, subsequently, borrowed his copy to copy!

i have about 20 more boxes to go through--history at my fingertips, packed up in cardboard boxes that are falling apart.

here's video from saturday's event at the pali.