I moved to Oahu, from Indianapolis, Indiana, in October 1961, when I was 6 1/2. Hawaii had only been a state for two years. We lived at Lualualei Navy Amunition Depot and Naval Radio Transmission Station, near Maili and Wai’anae. Lualualei was the valley below Kolekole Pass and on the other side of the pass is Schofield Army Barracks. We lived on a culdesac, in a quanset hut that was about three feet off the ground, on stilts. My best friend was the little boy across the culdesac, he was Jewish. We remained friends with the Kauffmanns for years after we moved. I went to school by bus to Barber’s Point Elementary for first grade. One morning while waiting for the bus, my friends and I trapped and caught a mongoose. Our bus drivers were sailors and we would sing on the bus all the way to school and all the way home. There was a ditch behind our home and a telephone pole crossed the ditch. On the other side of the ditch was the Quality Evaluation Labratories where my father worked. Dad was a civilian testing Polaris and other missles for the government. After nine months on base, we moved to the sugar cane factory town of Aiea.
We rented a home from the Thompson’s on Kealakaha Street, for about a year. The floors were wood and my sister and I would run and slide down the hall in our stocking feet. That house was way up Aiea Heights. The Thompson’s had a very large lot with three houses on it. The Thompson children went to Punahou, an exclusive private school. I went to Alva Scott Elementary, in Aiea, for second grade. We would play school at Elmarie’s, she was older. We would create plays based on stories we were reading and we would use her front porch as a stage. I remember doing the Shoemaker and the Elves.
In April 1963 we bought a new home, in Halawa Heights, in a subdivision that had been a sugarcane field, the year before. From our front lawn, you could see Ewa Beach, Pearl Harbor, all the way to Honolulu. Halawa Heights was still in the town of Aiea. We just lived on hillside closer to Honolulu. At the bottom of our hill, between Halawa and Aiea Heights was a sugar cane factory. Every morning at 8:00 and every afternoon at 4:00 the whistle would blow. In the morning, school started when the whistle blew. In the afternoon when the whislte blew, we knew it was time to go home and get ready for dinner.
Flash forward to the summers after sixth grade…No worries, I am sure that my memories will fill on this blog gap, sooner or later.
I spent many summers at Girl Scout Camp Paumalu, on the coastal bluffs overlooking the North Shore Beaches of Oahu. I slept in giant canvas platform tents about 12×12 feet square (six bunks to a tent, ate in an outdoor pavilion (and sometimes under the eaves of a vine canopy), cooked over an open fire, showered in an outdoor shower house, hiked the mountains and to the beach, waded through streams, swam at the beach, went mud-sliding, went horseback riding, and sang around the camp fire.
One summer several of us girls did not use the platform tents but lived in pup tents. We were at the primitive site. We built a an elaborate Chippewa kitchen. That was the summer we built the nature path. We found the foundations of an ancient Hawaiian Heiau. We put on a huge luau complete with dancing.
Some nights the moon was so huge and bright that you could read outside. Other nights when we would walk back from the main lodge, along the winding road, the trees shut out the little light that was there and we would hold hands and make our way in the pitch darkness. We held hands because one of those dark nights a counselor walking with us, fell into the ravine, and we had to do a resuce in the dark.
I learned songs from all over the Pacific Basin, as some of the counselors were married to Pacific Islanders that worked at the Polynesian Cultural Center. I still sing those songs and taught them to my children. I fell in love with God’s creations. I learned to do hospital corners on beds. I had my turn at cleaning luas (a [loo ah] is an outhouse, chopping wood, cleaning pots. I did reflector oven cooking and Dutch-oven cooking. We even did foil pizza, Ti leaf wrapped chickens on a fire, roasts in a bean whole, and s’mores. I, with two other leaders led 28 girls, backpacking for two weeks, into the back country of Kahuku where they trained men for Vietnam. Though we got permission to be there, somehow we ended up there when they were doing survival maneuvers and while there was a massive forest fire on the next ridge.
I ate mountain apple, wild guava, lilikoi (purple passion fruit), yellow passion fruit, and strawberry guava that grew wild in the mountains. I made hand cranked ice cream with hershey bars broken up in it. I think that the views from there and from my front yard in Halawa Heights, nurtured the creative and romantic spirit in me. I sketched the mountains, combed the shore for treasures, chased the crabs, camped on the beach, wrote poetry, and helped design and build a nature path. I was the first editor of the camp newspaper. We had to make copies using the old mimeograph gel method.
When I was 16, I was staff and the staff from the Boy Scout Camp Pupukea, across the hogback mountain, would invite us to share in their world. Shooting Skeet, rifle range, ceremonial campfire, swim, archery, and staff competitions. I remember one when we competed against the guys to build “one match fires” and won. Most of these guys were Eagle Scouts! One of the guys tried to cheat with white gas and it burned the hair off his arm. I would have to admit, their campfires were awesome, symbolic, and grand. It was funny when we got the guys singing “Gray Squirrel.” Such a sight! The Girl Scout Camp was on one ridge and then there was a hog back mountain or saddleback as we called it, because it really looked like a saddle. Then on the opposite side of the saddleback, was the Boy Scout Camp.
The flag ceremonies were incredible. There was a huge lawn in a circle around a pole. I can remember doing one on horseback. We were solemn but creative. These ceremonies were very spiritual for me. We would sing, pledge, and at time share inspirational thoughts, or pause and feel God’s beauty.
I was there before they did troop camping. Girls from all over the islands and from the continental US would come to the camp for a two week stay and would be placed in groups by age. The staff would be there all summer.
I was a Brownie for two years. I got my wings and bridged to Junior Scouting, and was a Junior Scout for three years. There was no troop when I was a cadet, and so I was a member without a troop and still went during summer to camp. I was a Senior scout through my senior year of highschool. I did a special program of combined Counselor in Training and Leadership training. I was a counselor for two summers. Later in college I had a troop at BYU. When I moved to Colorado I had a troop in Denver. When we moved to Loveland, I finally had a daughter old enough to participate. The program has changed so much over the years that I finally decided that it was not for my daughters. Maybe I see things differently as an adult. No, I have compared what was in my earlier scout books and experience with now. It is sad, the changes.