The Duke and The Babe

Duke Kahanamoku and Babe Ruth
Waikiki - Oahu, HI (October 1933)
This was taken ninety years ago and it's one of the coolest photos I have ever seen.  The two most iconic athletes in their sport are standing front of a outrigger canoe on Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head off in the distance.  There is one copy of this photo known to exist in the world that was autographed by both men.  It was sold last February by Heritage Auctions for over $10,000.

Seven Hours Of Bad Home Movies

These are the home videos from the tapes that I was talking about yesterday of my family's trip to Hawaii in June and July 1988.  Now I know that no one in this world, including my friends and family, are ever going watch someone's home video from 35 years ago.  You wouldn't want to see this even if it was in pristine condition and shot by someone who knows what they're doing, let alone to endure over six hours of static, dizzying pans, bad jokes, muffled audio, and random moments when the VCR started to eat the tape.  It's not interesting to anybody in this world except for myself, so my advice to you is to back away now before I channel my inner Patty and Selma.

 

Ok... you asked for it.

Here goes...

Hawaii Vacation
June 15 to July 6, 1988

Part One 

This tape begins on June 15, 1988 at the Chicago O'Hare Airport and picks up after we've landed on Oahu and gotten checked into our room at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki.

Next up is the four of us at Nuʻuanu Pali - the cliff of the Koʻolau Mountain, which is what remains of an ancient volcano that first erupted over 2.5 million years ago.  The cliff overlooks Kāneʻohe, Kāneʻohe Bay, and Kailua.  It's also the site of The Battle of Nuʻuanu, in which the future King of Hawaii, Kamehameha I, led his army against the army of Oahu's King Kalanikūpule.  The Oahu army was pushed back through the Nuʻuanu Valley to the cliffs at Nuʻuanu Pali, at which point they either jumped or were pushed off of the 1,000 foot cliff.  It was reported that construction workers who were building the Pali Road discovered 800 skulls which were believed to be the remains of the warriors that fell to their death at The Battle of Nuʻuanu.  The area is extremely windy.  You have to plant your feet at times to keep from being blown over, as Pop Pop nearly was while we were there.

After that is a few minutes of the four of us at Makapu'u Beach on the eastern side of Oahu, and it ends with our trip to the Honolulu Zoo, which is the first time that I've ever been to a zoo.  

Part Two

Pop Pop was a graduate of Kamehameha Schools Class of 1948, and this tape is different events from their class reunion.  I'm not sure where the first event in this video was filmed, but the second one was in the Kekuhaupi'o Gym.  After leaving the gym, Pop Pop filmed the Kamehameha School chapel and both inside and outside of the Heritage House.

Next is another class reunion event from a different day (either late June or early July 1988), but I'm not sure where it was.  Fun side note: If you listen closely toward the end of the tape, you'll hear my grandmother threaten to "kick my face in" if I keep making noise while she is trying to record.  I heard so many threats like this from Mom Mom, Pop Pop and my mother throughout this trip that I barely took notice.

Part Three

Most of the information I have on this is from the VHS tape label.  This all happened 35 years ago when I was just a few days shy of my 8th birthday, so my memories of these events is fuzzy at best.  I'm not sure who in this recording is related to Pop Pop, but I'm assuming that some of them are.

The tape label said:

1. Picnic At Duttie's

2. Logan's Son's Wedding (Bula and Kelly)

3. Picnic At Elmer's

In the first few seconds of the tape, my grandmother asks my mother where I am and she told her that I was at the beach (these folks had a beach and the Pacific Ocean literally in their back yard).  I do have a memory of this because I almost drown in the ocean, and one of the other kids saved me.  I never told anybody about that, so only me and this kid know that it happened.

Part Four

This video was taken on July 1st 1988.  The only reason that I remember the exact date of this one is because my family brought me to Sea Life Park in Waimānalo as a present for my 8th birthday.  This was the first time I'd ever been to an aquarium and I had a great time.  You've seen parts of the park if you've ever watched the 2004 Adam Sandler / Drew Barrymore romantic comedy 50 First Dates.  It's where Adam Sandler's character works in the film.

Part Five

This video starts off in Oahu on the Old Pali Road where we took turns swinging off of vines, and where Mom Mom fell down in the process.

The footage then picks up in Kona on The Big Island.  We're staying at a villa, but I don't know what it's called.  Mom Mom mentions the name of it after she's finished filming the ducks.  It sounds like she's calling it the "Intag Court", but I don't think that's right.  I tried to search on Google for something, but nothing came up under "Intag", and you get a million results when looking for words like Kona, Villa and Court.  After that, we stop at Mokuaikaua Church (Hawaii's first Christian church) and Huliheʻe Palace, both of which are in Kona.  The video ends at a luau that I believe is at Pop Pop's brother's house.

The next clip is at Waikoloa Villa right after we had breakfast.  I believe this part was filmed in the last week of June 1988, but it could have been the first week of July.  We then went to see the Kīlauea volcano, the sulfur pits, and through the Thurston Lava Tube to a garden and a small island that Mom Mom and Pop Pop used to bring my Uncle Kuana to when he was a baby.  We also visited Rainbow Falls and Punaluʻu Beach (Black Sand Beach), and explored the volcano.

The footage then picks up back on Oahu at the Halona Blowhole and Hanauma Bay, and  there's a few seconds of us with Don Ho.  He's related to Pop Pop somehow, but if it was ever clearly explained to me how they are related, I've forgotten.  I think they were cousins, but I can't say for sure because my maternal side of the family had a habit of calling lots of different folks Aunt and Uncle who were not at all related to us.  Hell, I was taught to call our next door neighbors Aunt and Uncle when we lived in the house on First Street in Hazleton back in 1988. Anyway, we called Don Ho "Uncle Quack" in the family (again, I'm not sure why).

The last 13 minutes of this tape are in pretty rough shape.  There's a shot of Mokoliʻi, which Mom Mom (my grandmother) refers to as Chinaman's Hat, followed by some footage of the back of the passenger seat of our rental car when my grandmother didn't know she was recording.  She's trying to apologize to me at this point by saying "How many times did I threaten to kill you... 75?  You know I'd never hurt you."  Yeah, Mom Mom... I knew.  I was a hell of a lot to handle at that age, during a time when they didn't really know what Autistic Spectral Disorder was, so the fact that they didn't chuck me into the volcano is a credit to their love and patience.

Pop Pop pulled over the car so that Mom Mom could get a shot of the Crouching Lion rock formation (while my mother complained that she's "getting it from the ass end").  Next is a quick shot of the Mormon Temple (my maternal grandparents, and a lot of the members of my family on my mother's side are Mormon).  This part was filmed on July 4th, 1988 when we were on the way to the Polynesian Cultural Center.  I'm not sure if this was the same day or a different day from the Chinaman's Hat and Crouching Lion footage.

Next is a couple of minutes of footage from the Polynesian Cultural Center.  My grandmother must have either been asked to stop recording or was running very low on tape space, because there isn't too much footage of this, and it's exactly the kind of thing she would normally film as much as she possibly could.  After that is about a minute at Pop Pop's mother's grave.  She was born Julia Kaonohi Hipa on January 17, 1893.  Her name was Julia Kaonohi Tom when she was married to Pop Pop's father.  When she passed away on February 28th, 1949, her name was Julia Kaonohi Hipa Lovell, having taken the last name of her second husband.

There's a few minutes at Pop Pop's brother's house.  His name, and his son's name (Pop Pop's nephew) is Thomas Tom (or "Tom Tom").  You can see me on the living room floor for just a few seconds.  I remember this well because I was playing video games with my cousin Danny, and it was the first time I had ever played (or even seen) a Sega Master System.  We were playing a game called Great Baseball, which had just come out the year before.

The last few seconds is us at the airport on our last day in Hawaii as we were coming back home to Pennsylvania.  One of Pop Pop's sisters saw us off, but I can't remember which one (Mom Mom just referred to her as Auntie on the tape, which is what we called all of our Aunts).

Well, that's the end, and if you watched all of these videos, now might be a good time to research a good therapist to help you understand why you spent seven hours of your life watching home videos from 35 years ago from some random middle-aged nerd on a mediocre blog.  If you start seeing hula girls in the ink blot test, you can totally blame me.

A Trip To Hawaii

Ethel Mae Tom and Sharlene Nani Tom
O'Hare International Airport - Chicago, IL  (June 15, 1988)

That's my maternal grandmother (Ethel) holding a video camera on the left and my mother (Nani) trying to take a nap on the right.  I took this picture of them at Chicago O'Hare 35 years ago while we were waiting to board our plane to Hawaii.

My maternal grandmother (who my cousins and I all called Mom Mom) had just bought a new video camera shortly before she, her husband (who we all called Pop Pop), my mother, and I left Pennsylvania to spend three weeks in Hawaii.  Over the winter, I came across the tapes that she recorded while we were there.  Some of them were in pretty rough shape with warping and static on the picture, so I digitized them before the tape could degrade any further and I uploaded them to a playlist on YouTube.

Watching these tapes 35 years later is a bittersweet experience for a number of reasons.  Mom Mom was by far the person who I was the closest to on my mother's side of the family.  We didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, but she was a pretty damn cool woman who didn't take crap from anybody and I always admired that about her.  She was also the only person on that side of my family who was patient enough to give me a place to live when I going through rough times when I was a kid.  I've come to learn as an adult that I am on the spectrum, but folks really didn't know how to handle that sort of thing in the mid to late 80's, and I can tell you first hand that just about everything that they tried made things much worse.  Mom Mom's method was simple, but effective.  We'd grab a couple of Nintendo controllers and she'd just sit and talk with me while we played video games.  She passed away in 2005.

Mom Mom wasn't perfect, as anyone who knew her will attest, and one of the ways that has affected me in recent years is in my heritage.  Her husband, who we all called Pop Pop, is half Hawaiian (his mother is from Oahu) and half Chinese (his father came from the Canton province in South China).  When I was born, I was given a Hawaiian middle name, and I was raised to believe that I was Hawaiian.  For the first 40+ years of my life, I had no reason to ever question this.  That all changed when an Ancestry.com DNA Test showed that I don't have a drop of Hawaiian or Chinese heritage.  At first, I thought it could be a mistake, so I had a second test done, this time with 23 And Me, but the results were the same.  So, if you're wondering why I refer to Pop Pop as my grandmother's husband instead of calling him my grandfather, it's because he isn't my grandfather.  I never knew my maternal grandfather.  I learned not too long ago that I'm not alone in this discovery.  I'm not very close at all with my mother's side of the family (for many reasons that I won't get into here), but I talked with two of my cousins who told me that my oldest uncle also had a DNA test and learned that he isn't Hawaiian or Chinese either... so that makes two out of my maternal grandmother's four children that were fathered by somebody else.  I know that the socially acceptable thing to say here is that he's still my grandfather because he treated me like his grandson when I was growing up, and that's all well and good, but we've never been especially close.  When I see Pop Pop on these videos from our trip to Hawaii, I don't think of him as any less of a grandfather to me, but I do feel like I am a fraud for proudly claiming a culture and a heritage that isn't really mine to claim.

There are a lot of other things that make this a period of my life that wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows, but I'm not going to get into all of that here.  I'll go through some of the things on these videos at some point.  I can't imagine that anyone is going to want to spend six hours watching my old grainy home videos, but who knows.  Maybe I'll be old and senile at some point and start digging through this blog trying to figure out who the hell I am.  If that ever happens, hello "future me".  Have fun following the breadcrumbs.

A Bowl Of Aloha

Spicy Bowl
Aloha Poke - Fogelsville, PA

I spend most of the first 40 years of my life believing that I was part Hawaiian, until I received the results of two DNA tests showed that my maternal grandfather isn't a blood relative.  If I'm being completely honest, the family part of it doesn't really affect me all that much.  I'm not at all close with my mother's side of the family, but even if I were, these results wouldn't have made me treat them any differently.  It did kind of rock my world a bit though.  Imagine having a culture that you thought was your own ripped out from under you.  Sorry guy, your grandmother was fooling around behind your grandfather's back, and as a result, your ethnicity is a lie.  Not cool.

So anyway, even in the days that I did think I was Hawaiian, I still had never heard of a Poke Bowl.  I spent about a month in Hawaii in the summer of 1988 and don't ever remember seeing one.  The main food that I remember from that trip is poi... lots and lots of poi.  That should have been my first clue that I might not be a real Hawaiian.  I thought poi was pretty terrible, but these poke bowls are the exact opposite.  I think I could live off of these!

If you've never had a poke bowl before, picture getting a bowl at Chipotle, but the protein and vegetables that you're choosing from are made up mostly of sushi ingredients instead of Mexican food.  I had the Spicy Bowl, which includes spicy tuna, spicy salmon, crab meat, kimchi, edamame, corn, cucumber, jalapeno, crispy onion and ginger with spicy mayo and sriracha sauce.  It was delicious!  If there was an Aloha Poke in my hometown, I'd probably eat there once a week at least.

Confessions Of An Ex-Hawaiian

My world was rocked last month when an Ancestry.com DNA test revealed that I may not be Hawaiian or Chinese after 40 years of  believing that I was both.  There was never any reason to doubt it.  Sure, I'm not quite as dark skinned as some of my cousins, but I have dark hair and dark eyes, and, well... my Pop Pop is Hawaiian - born in Hawaii to a Hawaiian mother and a Chinese father.  Just look at him.  Why would I ever doubt it?

This is from 2008.  I don't look anywhere near this good now, but it's the best pic I have with Pop Pop.

I didn't want to believe that my grandfather may not really be my grandfather, and that my ethnicity, which I was raised to be very proud of, may not really be who I am.  With that in mind, I got a second DNA test from 23 And Me in the hopes that maybe there was a mix-up with the Ancestry.com test and that I really am who I was always told that I am.

Well, the results are in, and you can see for yourself.

There you have it - not a single connection to Hawaii or China.  I would like to say that I took all of this in and had a sense of humor about it, but I really didn't... at least not at first.  The Ancestry.com test was the first domino to fall in what became a very dark month for me, and the 23 And Me results that came at the end of the month kind of brought a sense of closure to it all.  I learned that my life was a lie.  The Hawaiian name on my birth certificate is a lie.  The heritage that I so proudly claimed for the first 40 years of my life as my own is a lie.  The man I called Pop Pop, and the man my mother called Dad isn't actually related to either of us.  However, at the end of the day, there's not a damn thing I can do about any of it, so it's a pointless thing to worry about.  

Now, I'm kind of interested to see if I can find out who my grandfather really was, and whether or not I have any relatives out there that I didn't know about who can tell me more about him.  I can tell you that there are a bunch of genetic matches to me on 23 And Me, and none of the names look familiar at all.  So, if you've ever sent your DNA to one of these companies and you get a random message from a weird long haired scruffy dude with a story to tell about how he always thought he was Hawaiian Chinese, you might just be my cousin.

On a more uplifting note, I received a bit of good news from my DNA:

It may be going grey and the face under it has seen better days, but at least I have a better than average shot at keeping my hair.

I've learned a lot of hard lessons in life.  One that has been on my mind as April 2021 came to a close is to appreciate the good things that life has brought to you.  Far too often, I have been guilty of taking these things for granted, but I think I've moved on from that.  I'm reasonably healthy.  I have my wife, my dad and my dog.  I have food on the table and a warm bed to rest my head.  I've got music, movies and literature to occupy my time and my mind.  And as an added bonus, I've got a head of hair that's genetically likely to stick around for a while.  This world has been better to me than I've been to it.  It's time to balance that out by appreciating the good that this world has brought to me and doing my best to add to it in whatever way I can.

Just Another Ordinary Identity Crisis

This photo was taken at my mothers house on Thanksgiving 2016.  The dude in the white hat on the left is the man that I've called Pop Pop throughout my life.  I was named after him (my middle name), and like all of my cousins on my mothers side, I was given a second Hawaiian middle name.  It's Manukai.  It means "breeze from the ocean".

July 1988 - Mom Mom, Pop Pop, Mom and I in Hawaii

When I was seven years old, I spent a month in Hawaii with my mother, my Mom Mom and my Pop Pop (I had my 8th birthday on Oahu).  While we were there, I was introduced to dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins that I never met before.  He also taught me a lot about my Hawaiian heritage.  Soon afterward, he gave me a home with three square meals and a safe place to sleep when my mother and her new husband decided I was too much to handle.

July 5, 2008 - Mom is on my left.  Pop Pop is on the right.  The 28 year old me is in the center.

When I was 11 years old, I moved to Florida to live with my Dad and I drifted away from my mother's side of the family.  That distance only grew wider with time for many reasons, not the least of which is our differing values when it comes to bigotry, social justice, and... well... everything.  The election of Trump pretty much broke my branch off of their family tree altogether.  However, despite all of the arguments and disagreements I've had with him, I never doubted for a second that he loved me.  Until very recently, I also never doubted that he was my grandfather.

Then, along came the Ancestry.com DNA test.

So, as you might have guessed by now, my grandfather is Hawaiian.  Actually, he's half Hawaiian and half Chinese.  His father emigrated from Canton to the islands when he was a young man.  He opened a restaurant, met his wife, and had a family.  Pop Pop was his youngest son.

My ethnicity is a bit more complicated.  I have always been told that I am a "Heinz 57" because each of my grandparents have ancestors that came from somewhere else: My paternal grandfather was German and English, my paternal grandmother was Italian and Tyrolean and my maternal grandmother was Irish.  All three of them have passed away.  The only one of my grandparents who is still alive is Pop Pop.

When I first looked at this ethnicity estimate, I didn't pay very close attention to it.  Sure, it seemed odd that there it doesn't show Polynesian or Chinese, but it's only an estimate, right?  After all, it's also saying that I have a bit of Northern African, Norwegian and French heritage, and I can't think of anyone in my family who might be any of those.  The 22% Scottish jumped out at me too.  To the best of my knowledge, there is no one of Scottish ancestry in my family, but according to my DNA, it's the second highest part of my ethnicity.

Then, I noticed the section where my DNA is compared to other family members who have also taken the Ancestry.com DNA test.

Katie, Nathan and Casey are three of my cousins.  Up until I first looked at these results, I had always figured that they were my first cousins.  After all, their father is my uncle - my mother's brother.  We have the same grandparents.  Therefore, they're my first cousins, right?  Not according to our DNA, they're not.

While I recognize that these are estimates and not an exact science, this isn't just one person.  It's three people.  In each case, the highest likelihood of our familiar relationship is "Half 1st Cousin", which would mean that we share one grandparent.  Also, all three of them have evidence of Polynesian and Southern Chinese ethnicity in their DNA.  With me - zip, zilch, nada.  I have one percent of Northern African heritage, but not a drop of Hawaiian or Chinese.  I don't know if this is evidence that would stand up in a court of law, but the picture that this paints is pretty clear.  My cousins and I have the same grandmother, who ancestry appears to be both Irish and Scottish.

I had a second test done with 23 And Me just to get a second opinion.  The results are supposed to come back later this month.  Who knows, maybe the folks at Ancestry.com accidentally spilled my Hawaiian Chinese DNA into the hand-washing sink.  It doesn't seem likely, but I suppose it's possible.  However, if this comes back with similar results, this means that, in all likelihood...

• Pop Pop is not actually related to me.
• The man that my mother has always believed to be her father is not actually related to her.
• I never met my maternal grandfather.
• My mother probably never met her birth father.
• I am not the race or ethnicity that I was raised to believe that I was (well, at least a quarter of it).

And what the hell do I do about any of this?  Well, you're looking at it.

I certainly can't tell Pop Pop, or my mother or anyone on that side of my family.  My mother is ridiculously close to her father, and I don't think it's a great idea to start making accusations about my dead grandmother to a side of the family that I am already the blacksheep of.  Incidentally, there is zero chance that any of them find my blog.  Hell, if they haven't found it in twenty years, they're not going to suddenly stumble on it today, and I guarantee you that none of them, including my mother, cares enough to Google me.

I don't really have any close friends to talk with about this.  One of my many lovely qualities is that I have a remarkable talent for pushing people away no matter how hard they try to be good to me, and by the time I stop being a jerk and overthinking everything, they're long gone.  Hell, even the casual friends and work acquaintances I've made over the years are all gone since I got rid of social media a few years ago.  I really am a piece of garbage, aren't I?

I tried telling my dad about this, but he's not super comfortable talking about my mother's side of the family.  It was a pretty crazy time in his life, and it ended about 35 years ago, so I guess I understand that.  The reaction from my wife was similar, but for different reasons.  She knows Pop Pop and likes him quite a bit.  I do too.  I may not be close with him anymore (see the above paragraph), but I love him.  I know in my heart that this doesn't really change anything.  He's been my grandfather for my entire life, and he'll always be my grandfather.

The other question this all leaves behind isn't quite as clear.  Who am I?  Before all of this, if I were filling out a bio or introducing myself in the asinine and awkward way that I have, that's always a part of it.  Hey folks, I'm Hawaiian and Italian!  I may be an absolute asshole that you'll want to strangle after a few weeks of knowing me, but check out this cool little fact about me!  All sarcasm aside, it was a part of my heritage that I very strongly identified with for many years.  As a kid, I learned everything I could about Hawaii.  I read books.  I watched movies.  I learned some of the language (and forgot most of it).  I cheered my ass off for Shane Victorino when he played for the Phillies.  Check out our center fielder, The Flyin' Hawaiian!  Hell, I even make excuses for why Spam is a perfectly acceptable side dish with breakfast.  There's not a whole hell of a lot about me that's special, but I always had that.  No matter how low I've ever felt, that was the one thing that this world couldn't take away from me.  Well, guess what... it did.  And as usual, it's my fault.

If only I hadn't gotten that damn test.

The Smallest Minority In Town

Mathematically, this means that West Hazleton had a total of 4.5 Hawaiians during the 2010 census.  I've lived in this borough for most of my life, and I can't say that I've ever come across any other Hawaiians in town, but who knows.  Maybe one of the houses I walk past with the dog every day is hiding the other three and a half Hawaiians... or is it three Hawaiians and a Menehune?

Unless I had a cousin living down the street that I wasn't aware of, I'm pretty sure that 0.1% is just me.  I wonder what the 2020 census will reveal.

Kay, Dis One’s For Gabby

Israel Kamakawiwoʻole
One of the most beautiful musical performances ever recorded almost didn't happen.  It was 1988 and Iz was at club called Sparky's in Honolulu hanging out with a guy who had done business with a nearby studio called Audio Resource Honolulu.  The two men went out to a pay phone at 2:30 am and spoke to Milan Bertosa, who ran the studio on the second floor of the Century Center.  He was closing up shop and told the caller to come in tomorrow.  Iz took the phone and asked "Please, can I come in?  I've got these ideas and I don't want to lose them."  Mr. Bertosa was touched by the singer's politeness and told him that he could have a half hour of recording time if he came to the studio right away.

Iz arrived in time with his ukulele in, sat down at the microphone, said "kay, dis one's for Gabby" and recorded a soft reggae medley of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and What A Wonderful World in a single take.  It was beautifully flawed - he mixed up some of the lyrics and chords, but the imperfections made it perfect because it came from his heart.  The recording was released on a single in 1990 and on his 1993 album, Facing Future.  Both the single and the album would go platinum, and Facing Future became the best selling album of all time by a Hawaiian artist.  According to EMI, his rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow is by far the most requested version of the song.

Today, on what would have been his 61st birthday, Google has honored the Hawaiian legend with a doodle.  Please take a moment to listen to his song.  It's been a dark year so far, but for just a few minutes, close your eyes and try to imagine Iz at the studio on the islands in the middle of the night sharing an idea that came to him in a bar, which went on to bring a smile to the face and a tear to the eye of millions in the years since.

Sources: The Honolulu Advertiser (6/24/2007), Newsweek (5/20/2020), NPR (12/06/2010), Pro Sound Network (3/11/2010)

Hawaiian Spam Lockdown

Spam is in such high demand in Hawaii that it is being stolen by the case and resold on the streets.  Many Hawaiian stores now stock the delicious canned meat in special locked boxes, similar to what is used for displays of electric razors and video games on the mainland.  (Source: Washington Post / Reddit)

From Hawaii To Hazleton

The Plain Speaker
Hazleton, PA - March 6, 1958
This article was published sixty years ago today.  My maternal grandparents lived in Hawaii (where my Pop Pop is from) for four years before moving to Hazleton (where my Mom Mom is from).  Back in the 1950's, that sort of thing was reported in the local newspapers.

Delicious, Send More

Sunday Call Chronicle
Allentown, PA - June 5, 1977
The story of the Hawaiian Mafia, also known as "The Company", would make for one hell of a cool mobster movie.

A Love Song To An Empty World

Kauaʻi ʻōʻō
American Bird Conservancy (1987)
The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird was native to Hawaii.  In 1987, photographer David Boynton recorded the song of the last of its species.  It was a male bird whose mating song went unheard, as there were no remaining female birds of the species left on earth.

That 70's Hawaiian Luau

This photo was published in the Standard Speaker forty years ago today.  My mother is on the left, my grandmother is in the center, and my aunt is on the right.

Flyin' To Another Title

Shane Victorino
Boston Red Sox (2013)
Former Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino hit an RBI double in the 3rd and an RBI single in the 4th to score 4 of Boston's 6 runs in Game 6 to give the Red Sox their third World Series Championship in ten years.  It's the second ring for the Flyin' Hawaiian who was a key member of the 2008 World Champion Phillies.  [photo by Jim Davis / The Boston Globe]

Ohana Mau Loa

Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino purchased this billboard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  It can be seen if you're traveling west near the Willow Grove exit (343).  You will be missed, dude.

The Retaking Of Iolani Palace

Iolani Palace
Honolulu, HI
For the second time this year, a Hawaiian independence group staged a takeover of Iolani Palace in protest of the 1893 illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.  The group of approximately 20 members of the Kingdom Of Hawaii Nation Ministry Trust held the grounds for a few hours before they were arrested.

I visited Iolani Palace when I was eight years old.  It was the home of six Hawaiian monarchs: King Kamehameha III, King Kamehameha IV, King Kamehameha V, King Lunalilo, King Kalākaua and finally Queen Liliʻuokalani before the fall of the House of Kalākaua.  Afterward, it was used as the capitol building for the territory, and later the state of Hawaii until 1969.  In 1978, the building was restored and opened to the public as a museum.

As a man with native Hawaiian ancestry, I am firmly in support of Hawaiian sovereignty. It's going to take a little more than good intentions and security t-shirt to get the job done, but I respect the effort and the message.

Honolulu Star Bulletin - August 16th, 2008