I have a friend named Uncle Martin. He is a kupuna whom I met at least 15 years ago or more. Eccentric, a farmer, an effervescent tinkerer who once tried to build an engine from mail order parts that would create its own electricity using water. He was so certain it would work. He was deeply Catholic, and sometimes would give me books on sin, repentance, and forgiveness. He was fascinated with miracles and visions. He was a bit disheveled in appearance, with his old boroboro shorts tied up with a bit of cord. He made soups out of the weeds from his garden, and was always giving me bits of sourdough starter, hoping I would make my fortune by recreating the sourdough lavosh he made years ago. We were great friends.
He volunteered at my work and came to stay there for a while, living adjacent to the garden in one of the common rooms. He built himself a rounded green cave out of chicken wire, covered in liliko‘i vines, and buried fish guts in the garden to make compost. He drove folks crazy with his stubborn, sometimes stinky shenanigans. He was happy, generally happy. When living up in the garden wasn’t a good fit anymore, he stayed with a friend instead. I’d pick him up, because he was on my route to work.
He had a keen memory for his age. He remembered everything that happened to him, and how things were before. He remembered December 7, 1941 and where he was that day. He remembered the bunker they had to dig in their yard to practice hiding, and how they drew their blackout curtains closed every night for a year or more. He remembered an old vintage house we used to drive by every day on School Street where a girl he once dated had lived. He remembered that particular mango tree at Liliu‘okalani Park that used to give the best fruit, before they cut it back.
My work at that time concerned culture and history and bringing youth together to feel pride in their community. Because he grew up in that area, his fountain of stories was so valuable, painting tales of the Kalihi of yesteryear, before the H-1 cut the community in half. Which houses had which kind of families, and you could tell because of the fruit trees in their yard—Chinese had loquat and lychee. Hawaiians had mango. You knew who had the best trees. Even then as we drove down the street, Mark driving, Uncle Martin as navigator and me in the back with my computer furiously taking notes on everything he said, he knew which families and which houses once had the best trees after more than 60 years. Most of the trees (and the families) were long gone.
He remembered when Kam Shopping Center was taro patches. It was remarkable. His grandmother lived down in Damon Tract, which is where the airport is today. She kept chickens and grew vegetables, and they would sell at market in Chinatown, on River Street. On December 7, he climbed up into the mango tree and got a good view of the planes flying overhead.
He was drafted at the end of the war, but since it was just over, he didn’t see combat. He went out to the Pacific and participated in cleanup. He remembered brand new Jeeps, munitions—all kinds of stuff just being thrown over the side of the ship. Clean up, I guess.
I miss my friend. Later on, he moved again and I’d go check out his wild garden in the yard. He began to slow down a bit, but his mind was sharp as ever, even if his feet were unsteady.
One day I introduced him to Aunty Pua, and they shared tales of Damon Tract while I drove us around. Uncle Martin remembered her grandmother’s poi factory. Time grew close as they reminisced together. He told us how every Sunday they’d go out to the reef at Ke‘ehi and get “slipper crab”, (which we call slipper lobster now) and they’d have it for dinner—a poor man’s food that is scarce and valuable today. There was choke back then. His grandma kept a jar of lemons on the roof, preserving them in salt. So salty, so sour! Both of their families were evicted when Damon Tract was developed into the airport.
Me and another friend even took him on a canoe once, to the nearshore islands off Ke‘ehi that she takes care of. To see him, his cane planted in the sand on the island, sun and wind on his face, sharing stories about the old stories she always tells, about the fishponds that are long gone, was a delight.
***
This wasn’t what I set out to write today. That same canoe friend had told me about her Tutu from Kalihi, and how she was a hula dancer, hula sister of Aunty Maiki Aiu Lake. That piqued my interest. Aunty Maiki was the kumu of my kumu and many others. Searching, I found an interesting missive from that era about these women and their hula genealogy. A renowned kumu hula, Gertrude Makini, lived on Rose Street in Kalihi. Many learned from her, including Aunty Maiki and my friend’s tutu Aunty Nellie.
Today, Rose Street connects to one of our largest public housing projects in Hawai‘i, which is being redeveloped into a mixed income neighborhood. Today, Kalihi doesn’t have a great rap. But there’s so much rich culture and history there, old and new, and I’m so grateful for folks like Uncle Martin and Aunty Pua who shared their stories. Reading the missive about the hula aunties and the unexpected Kalihi connection reminded me of Uncle Martin and Aunty Pua. And I realize there’s so many more stories, like those of Aunty Nellie and Aunty Maiki. I love history and what we can learn from it.
There’s an awesome volume of oral histories on Kalihi, and I happened to find the three big hardcover books online years ago. Why a library would ever retire them, I don’t know, but I was grateful for the find. You’d almost hardly recognize the Kalihi today that rings from those old, worn pages, from the stories we’ve been told. Almost. But all those roots and glimmers of these stories are still there in the proverbial soil of Rose Street and the other lanes in Kalihi, where long gone lychee and mango trees have made way for new families, and new stories.
What am I taking away from this? I just ponder…thinking about the parts of the community and ourselves that we wish were different, or better, that we judge and see as “bad”. What is better, really? Or bad? When we unpack and get down to it, the whole story is always so much richer. It gives us grace and context and curiosity to understand who we are (who the community is) and how we came to be. It’s usually more complex than we thought, and it’s always worth diving in to. And perhaps, then, there’s a little more empathy and willingness to embrace the rough spots and challenges we face with more aloha.
There would be periods where I’d lose touch with Uncle Martin. There was a while when I was traveling a ton in my new job, and I missed a birthday party his daughter threw for him. The big 9-0, I think it was. Some of our other friends went, and they said there was a big lechón and it was a nice party.
The last time I saw Uncle Martin was before I went on a trip in 2024. (Or was it 2023? Ah, my own memory is so regrettably hazy). During the pandemic, when it was safe enough, I’d go pick up my staunchly anti-vax friend (did I mention he was quite the conspiracy theorist?) and go for drives on the weekend. I’d pick up takeout food for us and we’d pick a part of town and go driving around, looking at scenery and reminiscing. We’d sit and look at the brilliant blue water at Ke‘ehi Boat Harbor and eat our katsu or saba and rice and talk stories. It was fun.
I knew that his kids were concerned about his living alone. The house where he lived was getting a little overgrown, a little leaky, a lot older. Sometimes he’d climb the steep roof to try and patch it. I didn’t really know his kids, and kept my involvement to being a friend. I had lived with my grandfather until he passed away, and I know there’s a lot of things to navigate when getting older and how things change with yourself, and your family.
He decided to go to the continent to stay with his nephew for a bit. He always said how his nephew was an entrepreneur type, like he was, always trying to create something new. He enjoyed being with him. I haven’t heard from him since then, and hope he’s well.
He must be at least 96 by now, hopefully still strong as an ox chewing its cud, making dubious fermented soup from yard weeds in an old crockpot, driving everyone crazy with his stubborn shenanigans. Sometimes I drive by the place where he used to live, hoping to see a flash of his white hair amidst the green jungle of his wild garden. But he’s gone.
♥️ Dawn
Photo taken 9/22/21 at Mauliola