Mokuleia

I have to think hard to remember now. This was over 30 years ago.

From Maili Beach on the leeward side, you go south to Nanakuli, then turn left up the mountain, Lualualei, a snake of a road with a great view, through Kolekole Pass and over into Schofield Barracks, then down to Waialua, turn left, follow the road to Dillingham Beach. Sandy road off to the right takes you to a break of scrubby conifers, salt-cedars maybe. Or you can come up the center of the island from Honolulu, as long as you get to Mokuleia Beach.

Facing the sea. Public beach on the right, military beach a ways down the road on the left. Fresh water from the public beach. In the stand of scrub trees a couple dozen beach dwellers live in about a dozen huts. Huts are secluded, at the end of trails in the sand, the trails themselves nearly hidden among thick scrub brush and trees. Pretty much everyone has an ocean view.

I live in a tree hut. Built on the trunks of three of the 40 foot pine trees. The bedroom is completely enclosed, ten feet off the ground, accessed by a door at the top of a ladder, a 12 X 15 foot room, six-foot ceiling. Several glass windows display the beach--about half of this wall is glass. One of the windows was adapted from the top of a door, so the scene before me is living pictures, a real-time triptych, with sound. The mattress is a gray military wool blanket folded on a reed mat, an army poncho liner arranged on top.

A small, low table usable while seated on the floor—mostly for reading or writing, since the food usually happens downstairs. Candles are ensconced in coconut shells. If I light several I can see well enough to write in my journals, study, do my homework from the University. If I’m not trying to read I light only one, or maybe none. Guitar in its case in the corner. Some bamboo tokers lying around near the bed. Sketchbooks in a pile on a smallish shelf.

It should have been better than it was.

The dog’s name was Frog. I don’t know why. He was almost a benji, about 40 pounds. Too cute for his own good. He showed up one day and stayed. Most times he slept downstairs on the sandy floor of the kitchen. He didn’t like having people pet him unless they were going to give him something to eat. I hardly ever fed him.

All those people down at the public beach fed him. Sometimes he’d even bring food back to me. It was touching. He’d sneak a whole chicken off somebody’s picnic table and bring it back to me. Some haole tourist hot on Frog’s heels is standing next to my treehouse flapping his arms and trying to catch his breath, and I pretend I’m giving Frog a ration of shit for stealing the chicken. The haole doesn’t want the chicken back. He walks off in a huff. I split the chicken with Frog. It works out okay. This is not stuff you write home about.

The diving is good. I keep my snorkeling gear and my sling in the kitchen. The kitchen is three walls and two counters under the bedroom. I hang a 50 gallon lister bag under one set of branches. Some utility ropes and a few boxes of stuff lay about on the counters. Some shelves with coffee and honey, powdered milk. Some jars. Utensils, anyone who needs it can make coffee, tea, have some food. I also have a camp-stove, one burner.

Many mornings I take the snorkeling gear and paddle out over the shallow channels to look for a fish. Any meat eater, a foot or so long will do. Roast him and eat him with some rice, soy sauce, a spot of tea. Or snag an octopus, not as good, but it fills the belly. Guava, papaya, sometimes pineapple, lilikoi, strawberry guava, breadfruit, whatever is ripe will fill up the menu.

My version of being a starving student in the early 70’s on the beach at Mokuleia. I had a car, and drove into the Manoa Valley four days a week for classes. The GI bill was more than enough to feed me and keep me in clothes, but I had to budget it to buy books and pay tuition.

Adventures in paradise, for sure. There are reasons why it should have been better than it was, but it’s fair to say that it was as good as it could get. You see, it was before Telstar connected the islands to the mainland.