Monthly Archives: August 2010

Another bit of surf history: The Lahaina Invitational Surfboard Paddling Races, 1960

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Race bookletHere’s another bit of island history found at the bottom of a box of my dad’s assorted papers.

It’s the program for the First Annual Lahaina Invitational Surfboard Paddling Races, dated June 11, 1960. Sponsored by the Maui Surf Club, Puunene, Maui. Click on the front cover to browse through the program.

It’s in poor condition because the color from the red cover leached through the interior pages. So cover ink plus normal aging let you know that this is 50 years old.

There’s also a handwritten cover letter from the event’s general chairman, Teruo Uchimura, to my father, John M. Lind, founder of the Waikiki Surf Club.

Inside the program is a brief history of surfing on Maui, tracing its modern history to the Hookipa Surfriders Club formed in 1935. The club held monthly meetings at Hookipa Park, and the county built surfboard lockers to hold 50 boards. Surfboard paddling races were held in Kahului Harbor on Kamehameha Day in 1939, and again in 1959 when surfing began a new revival.

There are also great advertisements for Maui businesses, some of which are still serving the island 50 years later.

Here’s a nice photo from the program, captioned “Maui Surfers”.

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The smears of summer

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Watch out, the smears are coming.

Just a coincidence? On the day that the HGEA endorsements of Mufi Hannemann and Brian Schatz were announced, a comment was submitted here (but not approved) taking a wildly unfair shot at L.G. candidate Brian Schatz.

The comment appeared to be well-sourced, with enough citations to Hawaii laws and using some specific figures in a way that made it seem plausible. But a closer look shows that it was very factually incorrect, misleading, and unfair.

In brief, it charactized (or mischaracterized) Helping Hands Hawaii, the nonprofit that Schatz directs, as administratively top-heavy and straying from its primary purpose, implying that the group has improperly used state funds intended for “school repair and maintenance.”

That looked odd to me, so I looked up the statutes cited as well as the history of the group.

Helping Hands Hawaii was started back in 1974 as the Volunteer, Information, and Referral Service.

In 2001, the legislature, under pressure to deal with a growing backlog of needed school repairs, moved to clear the way for public-private partnerships for repair and maintenance. Helping Hands Hawaii was designated to administer a new fund, and to solicit funds and give grants for school repair projects, with an annual independent audit of the funds (see SB493). This took place before Schatz was associated with the organization.

Two years later, in 2003, this responsibility was transferred to a new nonprofit organization, Hawaii 3R’s by SB58.

According to tax returns filed by Helping Hands Hawaii, Schatz took over as president of the group during 2003, as the school repair responsibilities were being shifted over to Hawaii 3R’s. So the implication that Helping Hands Hawaii was somehow shirking its school repair and maintenance responsibilities five years later, in 2008, was totally wrong.

Oh, and the allegation that the organization is administratively top-heavy?

According to its most recent tax return, less than 5% of its $6+ million budget goes to administration and management. That’s a very good record.

Lesson: Beware those anonymous hits at this time of the season. Do a lot of checking before giving them any credence.

Same lesson applies to the letter referred to by Keith Rollman, in which allegations of pay-to-play deals at the city are wrapped around relationships between several people in Mufi Hannemann’s campaign. Also circulating about the same time as the HGEA endorsements. Reader beware.

Woodworker Abel Gomes credited with making early surfboards, canoe paddles

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I received an email this week looking for additional photos or information about Abel Gomes, a 20th century cabinet maker and woodworker who became a well-known surfboard shaper, and his son, Allan Gomes, a well-known surfboard maker in his own right.

Along with the note came three photographs. Click on any photo for a larger verion.

The first shows Abel as a young man with a friend on the beach in what is probably Waikiki.

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I found more information about Abel in the profile of surfer Paul Strauch, Jr. from the Legendary Surfers website.

Half Hawaiian, Paul Strauch‘s Hawaiian name is Kalakimau, meaning “The Lucky One.” He started surfing when he “was about seven years old,” he told Chris Ahrens. “My dad was a very good surfer, and he grew up right in Waikiki, two blocks back from the beach. I think that he had one of the first balsa boards that was ever made in Hawaii. It was made by the father of Alan Gomes, who was a woodworker, in 1919. They put a veneer [a thin layer of finer wood covering the surface of chaper wood] over the top and varnished the board. I still have that board.”

Abel Gomes, Alan’s father, was “an accomplished Honolulu craftsman,” a 1997 obituary on Alan described, “was renown for building sought after wooden planks for Alan and his friends, as well as canoes and paddles.” Wally Froiseth made sure I knew, after I had written an article on Tom Blake‘s development of the hollow board, that Abel had actually been the one who built the first Blake hollow boards. Blake would provide the specifications and Abel put it together. “Tom Blake didn’t actually make those hollow boards down there,” Wally told me. “This guy Abel Gomes made the boards. He was a woodworker. Tom wasn’t that much of a woodworker. But, he had the ideas, you know. He knew what he wanted.”

[text]The second photo shows a much older Abel Gomes shaking hands with another man alongside the Waikiki Surf Club’s canoe, Malia. Note the scoop-shaped canoe paddles, an innovative design that Gomes developed for the WSC. The photo appears to be taken along the Ala Wai Canal.

The other man might be 1940s Waikiki beachboy Buddy Young, standing in the background in a 1943 photo published here earlier.

A third photo is a lineup of young surfers in Waikiki, date unknown, probably in the early 1950s.

According to the caption provided by the Gomes family: “…probably taken in 1950-1956 at waikiki beach. 4th boy from the left is Pat Gomes (Abel’s other son). 5th boy from the left Kala Kukea(?).”

Any help identifying others in this photo would be appreciated! Just email me.

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Chicken and peppers offer a brief respite from politics

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Dinner on tableMonday evening called for a relatively quick and easy pick-up meal.

Safeway has had some beautiful artichokes, and we had one in the refrigerator. It went into a pot to steam. Then it was to the freezer for a few chicken thighs, skin removed.

Into a cast iron frying pan at medium heat…olive oil, then most of an onion, chopped, browned. Garlic. Then the chicken, long enough to brown. I added a couple of nice hot peppers, a few sprinkles of Penzey’s Cajun seasoning, some water or white wine. Lower heat a bit and simmer, checking periodically and adding more liquid as necessary. Lemon juice also adds a nice zing. Cook until chicken is tender and gravy is a rich brown.

When the artichoke was cooked, it came out of the pot and onto a plate. And at that point I added a green pepper, chopped into large pieces, and several small yellow and red sweet peppers, and I let these cook with the chicken for 6-8 minutes.

Served over rice.

It makes for a quick, easy, and colorful meal. Oh, it tastes good, too!