The coverage of Hurricane Harvey has me thinking about another climate invasion, the one that destroyed Kona Village on the Big Island. It was the tsunami that hit Hawaii in March of 2011. Kona Village was originally built in 1965 and there are plans to rebuild and open once more, for the 2019 season. But:
Before that disaster Kona Village was one of my favorited places to vacation. Everyone got their own hut surrounding either a small shaded lake or one that had a beach front. There was no television, no radio nor a telephone in any of the huts and only the open windows and a ceiling fan for any sort of air conditioning. All you really needed, outside of just having fun, was taken care of with just a signature and hut number. If you really needed to contact the outside world for an emergency, there was one land line telephone at the caretaker/receptionists desk at the dining hall. It was great for the kids, a protected place to rough it old Hawaian style.
One morning I made my way down to the pool - which has a bar. (It was not totally without creature comforts). The family was off doing activities so I decided to purposefully pursue my relaxation. I settled into a nice lounge chair in the shade of a palm tree and ordered a Bloody Mary. The great thing about Hawaii and its climate, if you are just out of the sun in any sort of shade, there is a trade wind breeze that fans you like a celestial concubine. When the bartender came back with my drink he said,
"Do you want to just keep that on the tab open, or do you want to close it."
"Tab?" I said. I just arrived and this was my first time to order anything from this bar. The bartender said,
"You have an open tab at the bar."
"I don't think so. It must be the wrong hut number, because I just got here. This is the first thing I have ordered from this Bar."
The bartender was very nice and said he would check on it, as I enjoyed the Bloody Mary and the beautiful Hawaian morning. Another great thing is the perfumed air that is Hawaii. I am not sure what the scent is, Sandi says Plumeria, I don't know about things like that. To me it just smells like a wonderful morning on the shores of a Hawaian beach. It is, as the poets say, intoxicating.
A few minutes later the bar-keep brought me one of those receipt forms with the drink orders recorded. Sure enough, there was a charge for three Pina Coladas at 9 bucks a piece with my hut number at the top. They were all from earlier that day.
"Gee, I don't know what these charges are. Like I said, I just got here and this is my first order."
Again the Bartender was very non-invasive and said he would see what happened.
It gave me time to think about the experience I had the morning before. Kona Village was built on the edge of an old lava flow. These ubiquitous rock formations look like gigantic frozen cow patties covering the country side. But the lava flows just on the edge of the Kona Village property were even more special. Carved into these lava rocks were petroglyphs from hundreds of years ago. Ancient graffiti scratched into the surface of the lava by people who sat exactly where I currently sat, centuries before. There were hundreds of these ancient art projects. Some of the drawings have worn away to near invisibility, but the idea that I was connected with the art of ancient artists was a religious experience.
Now Hawaii is a Mother Earth experience to me. I am fascinated by the culture and traditions of the Island people and always appreciate it when I'm there. I got the idea that I would commune with the spirits of thoses artists from long ago and celebrate sunrise over the petroglyphs. I was so excited to have this adventure that I woke up in time for sunrise even without an alarm clock.
It was twighlight and there was just enough light to easily negotiate the lava flows. I found a place to sit in the middle of the petroglyph field. The sun was not yet up but as the sky became brighter by the second, I could see the markings more clearly. I sat there in contemplation of this incredible artistic time warp tracing my finger along one of the figures that had been scratched into stone. That is when the first rays of the sun beamed across the edge of this sea of lava. Suddenly and for only about a minute or less, the entire lava field lit up with the intense light of the sun's first rays. All around me and even where I was sitting I suddenly witnessed not hundreds but thousands of petroglyphs. The sun was casting very low angle shadows so that even the most subtle scratch in a rock became clearly visible. Petroglyphs which had eroded too far down to actually see in full sun light flashed back alive with new beauty. I don't know how long it was before the sun moved from this perfect angle, but as quickly as the old drawings appeared they were gone again. It was a cosmic gift to me for getting up so early on a vacation morning.
Sitting by the pool looking out at the morning ocean waves, I had forgotten about the real world for a moment. Just in time for my second Bloody Mary the bartender appears in my own personal paradise. He has with him the signed bar receipts for the Pina Colada's that were on my tab. Sure enough, my hut number and my signature were prominently inscribed on the tickets....but something was just not right. I took off my sunglasses to examine the signature more closely. It wasn't my writing. It wasn't Sandi's writing, but it was familiar. It only took a few extra seconds to realize it was the hand writing of my youngest son.
"Did my son order these?" I said to the bartender.
"The little red haired kid? Yeah that was him."
"He's eight years old...." I said with a little bit of an edge.
"Oh, they were virgin Pina Coladas... just the mix not the rum." Naturally the price difference between a high octane Pina and the virgin Pina was only 50 cents so it was just another sale for his shift.
My young son had figures out that anything he might want was just a "signature" away.
I said, "Well, in that case put another Bloody Mary on my son's tab."
Then came the day when a wooden Tiki Statue washed up on shore of Kona Village.... To be continued....
Part 2 - Bubba's Death Tiki... tomorrow.
For now,
Jay
No comments:
Post a Comment