Deeds & Words

 After breakfast at Ken’s we drove through the Puna District toward the volcano.  There is a glass-blowing gallery on the way to the Volcano Park called 2400 Fahrenheit.  Because of the Big Island’s strict rules about access to highways (and signs), the place is a tease; you can see it from the highway but you can’t get to it from the highway. Instead you drive past it about half a mile, take a right on Old Volcano Road and double back a half a mile, and there you are.

Worth it?  Yes.  Unfortunately, none of the glass-blowers were working with glass the day we were there but the small gallery was open, filled with light and color; glowing oranges and reds, misty translucent grays, rich, opaque cobalts and cool greens. They made some stunning vases and small pieces in tropical-water greens and blues to go on lightboxes, and some similar shapes in black and red that looked like pools of lava.  As is always the case with art glass, pieces were expensive, but they also had sun-catchers and chopstick holders for souvenir prices.  The chopstick holders looked like palm fronds or feathers, with the top curled over to form a loop.  You could conceivably wear one as a necklace.  Misato Mortara, co-owner, who helped us, had made a sculpture piece from them, scores of them, entwined with drift wood.  They looked like drifting kelp fronds.

Check out their very hot website at www.2400f.com.

We asked Misato why they didn’t have a second sign up at Old Volcano Road.  She explained that Hawai’i has some very strict rules about signs along public thoroughfares.  L had explained earlier that this was why you only saw political signs in people’s yards, or held by volunteers by the side of the road.  I have to admit I find that part refreshing.

This is the only state I know about that has a minimum speed limit, so that the sight-seers do not impede the kamaiaina (locals) on their way to work.

Honoka’a is currently the site of an independent movie, based on Leo Yoshida’s Japanese young-adult novel, Honoka’a Boy. Visit Tim Ryan’s Reel Hawaii for more information and a nice picture of the People’s Theater in Honoka’a. L’s neighbor and close friend, who I will call Siobahn (not her real name), is working on the film’s wardrobe.  Siobahn also worked on Tropic Thunder!

If you are interested in projects being filmed in the state of Hawaii then you’ll find the Reel Hawaii website a treat.

We passed the volcano Park and stopped at the Black Sand Beach.  This is the most of a turtle I’ve ever seen at one time.  It was headed back into the water after the adoring fans and paparazzi became too much for it.  I can act all virtuous and say that I was at least 20 feet away, following the law and showing respect for the animal, but the fact is that I didn’t see it until about six other tourists sprinted past me to get a better vantage point for a pic.

            “One of USA Today’s 10 Best in the Nation.”  That’s Ken’s House of Pancakes, in Hilo, Hawai’i.  Ken’s makes it into the Hawaii guidebooks too.  L has a friend who is a native Hawaiian who says “When I come to the Big Island I always have to stop at Ken’s.”

            The place doesn’t look special.  It’s on a corner facing the road that leads to the airport; a one-story building that looks like a Denny’s or a Shari’s or a Season’s except for the deep metal roof  that you see in tropical and sub-tropical areas.  Inside, the booths have yellow naugahyde seats.  You can also sit at the counter.  The booths in the center of the main room have low walls, so that you can rest your arm on them and talk to the people next to you, if you want to.  L and I had a nice chat with the two women sitting across from us. One of them, Melody, makes tagua nut jewelry which she is starting to sell at farmers’ markets.  Melody grew up in Mountain View, California.  There’s a Mountain View, Hawai’i as well, and she said she frequently has to explain that it’s not the one where she grew up.

            What do they serve at Ken’s House of Pancakes?  Well. . .you do not need to limit yourself to pancakes for breakfast.  Like most pancake houses, the breakfast menu also provides waffles, omelets, benedicts, and eggs with a variety of meats: steak, ham, sausage, bratwurst, hash and Spam.

            Of course I had pancakes.  I chose the “mac nut” (macadamia nut) pancakes and POG juice, which is passionfruit, orange and grapefruit guava.  The pancakes were delicious; fluffy with a bit of a buttermilk tang that was not overpowering.  Coarsely chopped mac nuts covered the top and added a crunch, a creaminess, and a nutty sweetness that wasn’t sugary.  Each table has a pitcher of maple and blueberry syrup, but the server also brings a trio of tropical syrups to your table.  I felt like Goldilocks (something I can honestly say happens to me rarely).  The coconut syrup was—well, I don’t like coconut. I had high hopes for the guava syrup but it wasn’t the right consistency for syrup and was a little too bland.  I tried the lilikoi—passionfruit—and “it was ju-u-st right!” 

            POG juice was good, but I think it was less a juice than a “juice drink.”  Next time I will go with one of the classics, orange or grapefruit.

            The coffee is good, served in old fashioned thick mugs with a Ken’s logo on the side.  Your food comes quickly and the servers are bustling.  Buspeople stop by to top off your water or coffee if you need it, and they hit just the right pace so you never seem to be waiting for anything but you don’t feel interrupted either.

            Good pancakes, good service and an atmosphere that is relaxed and fun. That’s Ken’s, the best pancake house in paradise.

On Friday night, September 19, L took me to a Democratic event at the Mooheau Bandstand in Hilo.  The Bandstand is downtown, right across the highway from the seawall, overlooking the bay.  I had walked through it once before at night, when it was empty, and I thought it was rather small, but it held over 300 people easily and another couple hundred spilled out onto the grass.

*

            We had music from the Honoka’a High School jazz band.  They were pretty darn good.  They had several good vocalists, and the best by far was the young woman who belted out “Respect” as the closing number.  I don’t love jazz, but I thoroughly enjoyed them.  The Downtown Swing Band followed.  They had a wonderful clarinetist, but were using the sound equipment set up for public speaking, not musical mixing, and their performance suffered. 

*

            At six, the political part of the event kicked off.  The master of ceremonies was a Hawaiian comedian named Andy Bumentai.  (www.andybumentai.com) He bounded onto the stage and began making fun of things right away.  His energy reminded me a little of L’s dog Roxie, only Roxie isn’t so acerbic. If he has been in any movies I will have to rent them, because this guy is funny.

            Obama should be president, “because we can’t have things going on like they have for the past eight years, and because I’d love to have a President named ‘Barack.’  I could do fifteen minutes on that alone.  We already have a mayoral candidate in Honolulu named Mufi.”  He waved at the various banners for local candidates that festooned the bandstand.  “And I don’t know any of these local people, but  Jet Heng! I want that guy to win!”

From a spot in the crowd, people began to yell and point.  “He’s here!”  Jet Heng, a good-looking young Chinese American stood up, grinning.  Bumentai rose to the occasion.  “There he is!  What, that male model thing isn’t working out for you?” And of course, as Jet sat back down. . . “Cool your jets!”

*

Bumentai introduced Helene Hale, who is a legend in Hawaiian politics.  She has been active in state politics since. . .well, actually, since before statehood.  She talked briefly about the “Democratic Revolution” in 1954 and her male companions, none of whom could be present that evening.  “Get well, boys,” she said.  She talked about Barack Obama, but mangled his name.  On the third try she got it right, and added, “Well, I’m ninety.” Applause from the crowd.

Hale introduced Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s sister.  They hugged at the podium for several minutes.  When Hale went back to her seat in the front row, Maya said, “Ms. Hale, my brother’s been called many worse things than what you said.”

Soetero-Ng spoke well, without using place-fillers like “um” and “uh,” a good clear speaker who knows how to match her message exactly to her audience.  She exuded sincerity and a kind of humility.

She talked about the spirit of aloha and the idea of spreading it to the entire nation. (Now there’s a powerful vision!).  She told us about visiting her brother in Chicago after he graduated from Harvard.  She went with him while he visited families who had been impoverished by the closing of the steel mills, connecting them with resources and getting them registered to vote.  Unlike the Republican convention audience, this crowd actually knew what a community organizer does. “And all this,” she said, “while he [Obama] was fielding many, many offers, and rejecting them. Many of them were lucrative, too, because he had been the editor of the Harvard Law Review.”

*

Bumentai on Sarah Palin:  “Lipstick on a pit bull, good.  Lipstick on a pig. . .bad? I’m confused.”

*

Soetero-Ng wants us to reach out to friends and family in swing states like Nevada and Colorado to carry her brother’s message. “We need to do the work and tell the stories, to carry our values to the rest of the nation.”

At some point the crowd began to chant, “Yes-we-can!  Yes-we-can!” This went on for several minutes and she let it.   Then she leaned into the microphone and said, “You’re a fun crowd.”  A man behind me started to chant, “Yes-we-are! Yes-we-are!”

*

The difference between George Bush and Sarah Palin, according to Bumentai?  “Lipstick.”

*

Earlier in the program, Bumentai announced that Brian Schatz, the chair of the Hawaii Democratic Committee, was late. Andy assumed a serious mien and said in a radio-announcer voice, “Tonight, the part of Brian Schatz will be played by Andy Bumentai.”  He then did several Palin jokes (see above) and tried a couple of McCain jokes, which weren’t that funny.  He rebounded well though.

Later in the evening he came to the microphone again.  “I just found out that earlier this evening someone was pretending to be Brian Schatz!”  The crowd obligingly went “Oooohh!” and Bumentai said, “I know! Anyway, here is the real Brian Schatz.”  This haule kid came out.  He’s in his late thirties, but looked more youthful to me. He was much more politically correct than the MC, but fiercely competitive.  He wants Hawaii to have the highest margin of votes for Obama of any state.  And, he said, “It’s not just Obama.  We want to run the table.  Every house and senate seat, we want them all!”

*

At some time during the program, when there was a round of thunderous applause, L leaned over to me and said, I thought, “Reach into the fire.”  I wondered if this was some sort of local volcano reference or a Hawaiian spiritual thing.  A few seconds later my brain corrected the interpretation.  She had said, “Preaching to the choir.”

*

On the mainland, John McCain’s age is fair game for any comic or political speaker.  Before a Hawaiian audience, the Philipino-Hawaiian Bumentai knew better than to even touch it.  When he addressed Helene Hale from the stage, he called her “Auntie.”  In Hawaii, elders are respected and revered. 

Fortunately for Bumentai, Palin is by no stretch of anyone’s imagination an elder.

*

As I said, there were banners for candidates fluttering all around the edge of the bandstand’s circular roof.  There were eight or nine candidates for the mayor of Hawai’i.  That’s right.  Mayor of Hawai’i.  There are no municipal governments in Hawaii.  There is a state government and then five areas that roughly correspond to counties in California, and the top administration person in each of those areas is mayor.  There is also a council for each county or area. It explains why people actually seem to participate more.  Elected officials, at least on the Big Island, are accessible.  It also creates some situations L and her friends are not happy with, such as one school board for the whole state.

*

Driving home, L said that hearing Maya Soetoro-Ng speak made Barack Obama “more like a real person.”  I would say that Maya Soetoro-Ng seemed like a genuine person, and she makes her brother real by extension.

*

Hawaii’s primary was the next day, Saturday.  It seemed like a strange day to hold a primary, but it probably makes it easier for people to vote.  L’s neighbor and friend was a polling place worker.  It was a full day for her, more than 13 hours.  Turnout was lower than hoped, but about what expected.  Everyone agreed that the November election, Obama versus McCain, would be the big one.

Before we went to see the lava flow, my friend L took us to a kava bar in the Kalapana district. “Kava and lava,” she said. We made a left onto a street that paralleled the highway and drove for about a mile. Soon we were looking at dunes. L made a right and followed the road into a small square parking lot. Behind us was a café and fast-food place that sold coffee drinks. A sign, hand-lettered on plywood, advertised a nature walk. Palm trees, ferns and hibiscus bushes lined a sinuous curve of walkway along the café area. We got out and walked over in the shade of the vegetation to the kava bar.

     The bar looked like those places you see in movies set in tropical resorts, with a palm-thatched roof and a three-sided counter lined with stools. The back wall had a cold case with some beer and some soft drinks, and a large ice chest sat on a stool near the back. The bartender was short, smiling, and friendly. He was sitting on the inside of the bar. Along the parking lot side sat an older white-haired man, who also gave us a nod and a friendly smile.

     “A kava,” said my friend L, and I echoed it. I reached for my wallet but L waved me off.

     “My treat,” she said.

     Our bartender opened the chest and took out a bottle. He pulled down two clear plastic water cups, about six-ounce size, and poured in the kava mixture.

     L asked her other guests if they wanted one. They each said no.

     “It’s an unusual flavor,” L said.

     I looked at the cup. The liquid was a translucent green/brown/yellowish/gray, and not visually appealing, particularly. I lifted the glass. The smell was pleasant, herbal. I took a small sip.

     Mmm. Imagine a very bitter carrot, mixed with a little bit of rotting vegetables, and– I swallowed.          

     “Earthy,” I said.

     “Sort of an acquired taste,” said L.

     The white-haired guy at the bar said, “How are you enjoying your kava mud-water?”

     I took another swallow. “It takes some getting used to,” I said.

     Kava, , or ‘awa, or yaqona in Fiji, or sakau, is kind of a tranquilizer. It induces a feeling of well-being with no loss of mental clarity. The traditional beverage is made from the pulverized root of the plant (which is about 80% liquid) and mixed with water to a palatable strength. The Latin botanical name of the plant is Piper Methysticum, which means, “intoxicating pepper” but which looks like it should be the name of a wizard in a fantasy novel. “If Piper Methysticum refuses to help us, then all is lost!”

     The beverage I was drinking is a traditional way to serve kava. Maori elders in New Zealand use a kava drink ceremonially at the beginning of tribal councils. Here in mainland US you can buy kava powdered, in capsule form, in some health food stores. They recommend it to calm anxiety and help with insomnia. Before you run out and buy some though, consider that the powdered kava may be made of leaves and stems, which you don’t want. The main reason is potency; the heaviest concentration of kavalactones, which are the ‘mellowing” agents, is in the root; and the other reason is health. A study done in 2001 showed that while there were no liver-toxins in the roots of the kava plant, there were some in the leaves and stems. Go to Hawaii and drink it with water. Trust me.

     I leaned back against the bar and sipped my “kava mud-water.” It was late afternoon, and a breeze rustled through the palms, the ferns and the hibiscus. J, one of L’s other visitors, wandered off to explore the nature walk. From the house up the hill slightly to our left, two small children came out and started to play in the driveway, giggling. After a few more sips I realized that the inside of my mouth felt numb, a typical kava response. “It’s great when you have to go to the dentist,” said L, and laughed.

     L struck up a conversation with the stand owner about music. She had heard musicians, and seen hula, there several times. I realized I was feeling very good. I felt relaxed, friendly. That usual, almost-invisible barrier between observer-me and the world had faded, but I wasn’t having the short-term memory issues or loss of coordination I tend to experience (quickly) with alcohol. In short, I was having a good time. This is a good time in relation to being in Hawaii, where I had already been having a pretty good time for several days.

     I looked at the glass.

     I had drunk about half of the six ounces.

     I’m not very mathematical, but I did figure out that I felt about as good as I usually feel halfway through my second glass of wine—on three ounces of kava. Wow.

     I asked the bartender if he had ever tried putting honey in the kava beverage. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t dissolve. I have put coconut syrup though, for people who want it sweeter. You want coconut syrup?” I thanked him and said no. The thought of coconut added to the ripe ditch-greens flavor just didn’t seem appealing.

     I decided I was done with the kava, but I offered L’s son Daniel a taste. He took two stips through the narrow red straw. He was not impressed.

     Later, when I got home, I found an article on the internet about kava in New Zealand, where it is legal but there is limit to how much you can have “for personal use,” which means that young tribal people find it easier to use alcohol. Tribal elders are upset because kava has ceremonial value but also because kava does not create the hostility and violence that alcohol consumption can. Clearly this plant, while lowering inhibitions, works on different parts of the brain. For me, it created a sense of optimism and openness. In a tribal council, where you are trying to work out problems collaboratively, I think this would be excellent. I wouldn’t want to knock back a couple of kavas in Las Vegas, through, and then go wandering around the strip. Of course, if I could find kava on the strip in Las Vegas, it would be mixed with some fancy-flavored vodka (New! Stoli Papaya!), and have an umbrella in it—and I wouldn’t be in Las Vegas, or on the strip, in the first place, so the chances of that happening are probably small.

     Except that is doesn’t taste very good—and it’s about three times as strong—having a kava drink with your friends is like sitting on the deck after dinner and sipping a glass of wine.

     L finished hers, then sent her daughter to buy her some coffee, since she would be driving us up to watch the lava flow into the ocean.

Photo (c)2008, Marion Deeds

My friend took us to see the Kilauea lava flow.  As you head south into the Puna district on the big island of Hawaii, you pass a mileage sign that says something like, “End of the Road, 5 miles.”  The road really does end, because lava flowed over it.

Right now most of the lava flow comes from the Pu’u O’o vent. Where the hot syrupy rock drips into the ocean, a convoluted plume of white steam roils up at least four stories high. People think of a geyser.  It doesn’t look like a geyser.  It looks like a pillar of twisting white cloud, streaked or dotted, at times, with puffs of brown or silvery gray.

We followed the signs and the park rangers’ directions along a rutted dirt road onto a section of paved road that has been turned into parking lot.  The parking lot is open until 8:00 pm; viewing is possible until 10:00 pm.  The rangers, in florescent green and orange vests, wave you into your parking space (you have to back in).  You walk past a short promenade of vendors selling coffee drinks, handmade jewelry and photo prints of lava, and between an honor guard of porta-potties—one brand name is Rent-a-Lua—onto the lava.  The first thing you see, and many ignore, is the large Safety sign.  My friend’s son, Daniel, said, “I want to actually read the safety sign,” and he did.

The current trail is picked out in green and orange pylons, about three feet high, and brick-shaped adhesive markers stuck onto the rock itself.  In some places the rock looks like glass, shimmery, iridescent, multi-colored, and in other places it looks like rope, or silk drawn through a ring, or intestines.  These smooth ropy tendrils of lava are called pahoehoe lava. Vivid green fern fronds have already pushed their way up through the gaps in the rock, as have a few “For Sale by Owner” signs.  It’s a good buy if you have five hundred years to wait for it to be arable, or you don’t mind building your house on a place where you know molten rock has been flowing continuously since the 1980s.

You walk across lava.  If you’re an urbanite, you could kid yourself, for a while, that it’s just a really uneven blacktop parking lot—until, at some point, you remember that none of this cracked and stair-stepped blacktop was here two months ago.  You look at a bush that the lava detours around.  You stop and look down at the bush, and you realize it isn’t a bush.  It’s a tree, a tree that’s about twenty feet high, and only about three feet of it now rise above the rock.

The rangers said it was about a three-quarter mile walk, but it didn’t seem that long.  Together with many other tourists, we drifted out onto a small arrowhead-shaped scarp, cordoned off with more of those handy fluorescent pylons, roped with orange safety tape.  Here’s where you really get the point; just past the pylons, the lava drops off abruptly, about a fifteen foot drop to the previous lava flow, which drops off into the ocean.  The surf was up and breakers were hurling infinity-sign streamers of white froth into the air.  To our right, across a wide band of black, the steam pillar writhed. It’s hard to judge the distance, but I think we were about a mile away.  In sunlight, all you could see was the steam, churning steadily upward.  If you looked back up the slopes of Mauna Loa, you could see a delicate line of stream rising from the earth, where the lava flows underground towards the ocean. The sky around the pillar, and toward the mountain, looked hazy or cloudy as the steam spread out, and the air smelled like sulfur. My eyes and the back of my throat started to sting.

End of the road, here.

All this was before sunset.  The sunset alone was pretty spectacular; with multicolored clouds drifting over the crest of Mauna Loa.  Once the earth turned and the sky grew darker, you could see the golden and orange globs of lava as they flowed into the water. It isn’t like water from a faucet. It’s irregular. Gouts of orange light leapt up, diffused by the steam, while lozenges of fire-colors rippled in the water.  All kinds of colors melded there, the bluish, purplish sky, gray and white steam cloud, water that was a hundred different colors, the reds and oranges of the molten rock from under the crust of the planet.

Think about vents in the earth’s crust that release this ribbon of melted rock (2200 degrees Fahrenheit), think about it spinning out like sugar syrup boiled for candy-making, resting in long folds and interlocking loops, streaking down to drop into water, the most abundant element on the planet.  Imagine the necessary heat exchange taking place, the energy of that exchange turning the water into a swirling column of steam.  I picture the “skin” of these worms of lava cooling first, getting tacky and sticky, while the center of the worm, still fluid, extrudes into the water.  I probably don’t have the science right, but it’s still awesome.

If you’re of a more fantastical, or spiritual, turn of mind, you can see this elemental play as the work of the gods.  Pele (rhymes with jelly) is the volcano goddess of Hawaii and it is easy to watch this dynamic dance of earth and fire, water and air and see a powerful dancing goddess at its center. You could believe that this churning of elements is a battle– or love-play–between Pele and her adversary/lover Kamapua’a. In the stories about Pele she is strong, powerful, a force not to be ignored; destructive sometimes, passionate always.

And all of this, all of it, is about real estate.

Yes, it is.  Not the “for sale by owner” kind; the real kind. This is about creating earth, the kind we walk on, build on, grow our food on. Earth magic or earth science, the lava flow is about putting stuff on the top of the planet’s crust, or into its atmosphere, that wasn’t there before; minerals, walk-able space, earth. Somehow the human ability to push filler out into a waterway or swamp and then build structures on it, structures that often fall down during the first earthquake, seems piddly and childish. Look at me, mommy!  I made real estate!  That’s nice, dear.

The spewing lava forms a platform for spores and seeds that will blow or be dropped there, to take root and grow.  Obstructions in the ocean will affect wave action and air flow.  In a few years, this will be surface; in a thousand years it will be dirt, and in ten thousand years, a jungle. 

This violent, impressive, colorful process is all about making earth. Science, ancient gods, and real estate.

If you are going to see the lava flow, it is best to wear sturdy, thick-soled shoes and carry a working  flashlight for each person in your party.  Coming back in the dark is treacherous and the lava is sharp.  In Hawaii, no matter what you are doing, it’s a good idea to have water, mosquito repellent, sun-block and a hat.